


Heartland: Book One

by ssa_archivist



Series: Heartland [1]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Futurefic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-18
Updated: 2008-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-01 09:22:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/354905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark was a father at twenty-four, married at twenty-five, and divorced three weeks before his thirtieth birthday. Now, ten years on, Lois' career had endangered their son's life, and they'd all had to make some changes to their lifestyle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartland: Book One

## Heartland: Book One

by averaird

[]()

* * *

* * *

Many thanks to jakrar and ladydey for the beta! Any remaining errors are entirely my own. 

* * *

It all started when Lois wrote a damning expose on the level of organised crime in Metropolis. 

Well, it really started when Clark didn't realise that one chance in a thousand didn't mean that something was impossible. After Dr. Hamilton had told Clark that he was 99.9 percent certain that Clark wouldn't be able to get a human woman pregnant, Clark and Lois hadn't been as careful as they maybe should have been. 

Clark was a father at twenty-four, married at twenty-five, and divorced three weeks before his thirtieth birthday. 

Now, ten years on, Lois' career had endangered their son's life, and they'd all had to make a few changes to their lifestyle. Clark's house now had a state-of-the-art security system, Lois carried a panic button, and Johnny had had to move to a safer school. 

All of Metropolis' premier citizens sent their sons to Centennial Park Boys' School and, accordingly, their security was impeccable. The fees were going to be a stretch, but Clark believed that the guarantee of his son's safety was more than worth it. 

Johnny didn't seem too excited about moving to a new school, but that signified nothing. Johnny didn't get excited by much of anything, really. 

"Are you nervous, Johnny?" Clark asked, stealing a sidelong glance at his son. 

Johnny shrugged and his navy blazer hitched up around his ears, his shaggy black hair brushing the collar. Clark frowned, but forbore to comment. Clark's mom had told him that he had also refused to keep his hair neat and tidy when he was fifteen. Clark couldn't remember that, but there were some photographs of him at that age that he was too embarrassed to look at for that very reason. 

"I'm sorry that you had to move and leave all your friends behind, but you understand that it's for the best, don't you?" 

Johnny shrugged again. He had very eloquent shoulders. 

Clark wasn't even sure if his son had any friends. He never talked about anyone that he hung around with, and he hadn't brought anyone home from school for four years. Clark thought that probably made him a bad father, but Johnny didn't talk to anyone lately, not about anything important. Not to Clark, not to Lois, not to Martha, or any number of school counsellors and the one psychologist Clark and Lois had sent him to in desperation. 

Clark didn't know what had happened to change Johnny from the happy, confident boy he used to be. It might just be hormones, as his mom said, but whatever it was, Johnny wasn't saying. 

"Can I drive myself tomorrow?" Johnny asked, his eyes fixed steadfastly out of the car window. 

Clark's hands tightened fractionally on the steering wheel. "We talked about this yesterday, Johnny. It's not safe for you to be going anywhere on your own right now." 

Johnny's back straightened almost imperceptibly - if Clark hadn't been watching for it, he would have missed it - a sure sign that he was annoyed. Clark had had to learn to look for little tells in Johnny's body language to let him know how the boy was feeling. 

Clark decided not to push it, and they drove the rest of the way to the school in silence. 

"I'll be here to pick you up when you get out of school," Clark said as he parked his truck between a Porsche and a BMW convertible in the school parking lot. 

He turned to give Johnny's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but Johnny had already opened the side door and was sliding out of his seat. 

"Good luck, son," Clark shouted as the door slammed shut. 

His heart clenched as he watched Johnny amble up towards the school with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his pants. The cuffs of his white shirt were already poking out below the end of the sleeves of the blazer Clark had bought him only the month before. He looked gangly and awkward walking amongst the smart, polished sons of Metropolis' finest, and Clark wanted to bundle him back into the truck and drive him home. Keep him safe. 

Clark was usually thankful that Johnny hadn't inherited any superpowers along with his Kryptonian blood, but he couldn't protect Johnny in the same way that he could when his son had been a child. It would have been somewhat reassuring to know that Johnny could defend himself the way Clark had been able to when he was fifteen. He wondered if it had been of some comfort to his parents back then, even for all their worries about protecting his secrets. 

* * *

Martha was out when Clark arrived back home - which was a small but beautifully designed one-storey house in one of the nicer suburbs of Metropolis. She had left a note propped up against a plate of freshly-baked muffins in the kitchen, reminding Clark that she'd be out all day with Mrs. Henderson. 

Clark sighed, grabbing a muffin and eating it in three huge bites as he shuffled into his study. He wanted to talk to his mom about Johnny. She always managed to reassure him that he wasn't doing the terrible job raising his son that he thought he was. 

He switched on his computer and phoned Chloe as it spluttered into life. She wasn't answering her phone at the Planet and her cell went straight through to voicemail. Lois was still in Washington, working undercover on a story, and impossible to contact. In desperation, Clark tried Pete and Lana in Wichita. The phone just rang and rang. 

Clark slumped down in front of the computer and opened the Word file of his latest novel. God, his life was pathetic. He would be forty in a couple of months and he still lived with his mother. He could count his real friends on the fingers of one hand. 

He'd dated exactly three women in the ten years since his divorce. None of the relationships had lasted more than a month, and all of them had started out as blind dates that Chloe had set him up on. The last time he'd had sex was a deeply unsatisfying one-night stand after the last Daily Planet Christmas party, with Ed from the mail room. 

He'd exclusively dedicated most of his adult life to raising his son and being Superman, a superhero that an eleven-year-old Johnny had declared `lame' and `not as cool as Batman' when Clark had told him about his secret identity. Now Johnny was moving further and further away, and Clark couldn't seem to do anything to pull him back again. 

Clark spent the afternoon writing and then deleting sections of the penultimate chapter of his book. Fiction writing didn't exactly come easily to him - it was something he'd started, in slight desperation, after Johnny was born and he'd stopped working at the Planet - especially when he couldn't concentrate for worrying about how Johnny was getting along at school. 

Just to make matters worse, Clark's publisher rang to remind him of his fast-approaching deadline and to try and pressure him, yet again, to go on a signing tour, as if he didn't have a teenage son, elderly mother and entire planet to take care of. 

Marcus was just launching on his oft-repeated spiel about how, `the crime genre was overcrowded' and how Clark needed to `raise his profile across the key demographics' when Martha popped her head around the study door and frowned at him in puzzlement. 

"Just a second, Marcus," Clark said, cupping his hand over the receiver. "What's the matter, Mom?" 

"I didn't think you'd still be here when I got home. Shouldn't you be at the school picking up Johnny?" Martha asked, gesturing at the clock hanging on the wall above Clark's head. 

Clark's stomach dropped. "Shit, Marcus, I've got to go. I'm late, and my son's going to be waiting for me." 

He was at the front door before the receiver had fallen back into the cradle. How could he have lost track of the time? Anything could have happened to Johnny in the twenty minutes since school had let out. 

Halfway to the garage, he decided that the truck would be too slow, especially in the Metropolis rush hour. He spun on his heel and headed back into the house, toward the hidden closet where he kept his costumes. Picking Johnny up as Superman probably wasn't the best idea. Johnny would be mortified, and Clark would have to come up with a fantastic cover story to explain why the world's greatest superhero was doing the school run. 

His mom watched him rifle through the closet, twisting the rings on her arthritis-swollen fingers. 

"You can't fly there, Clark. Just take the truck. Johnny's a sensible boy, and he'll be safe enough at school." 

Clark ignored his mom, staggering towards the hallway as he pulled on his tights. Twenty minutes was too long. God, twenty seconds was too long considering the kind of men who might be after Johnny. At least, as Superman, he'd be able to do something if they'd taken his son: track them, confront them, and grind them into the pavement until there was nothing left that looked human any more. 

His hands were shaking so much that he couldn't undo the tiny little catches that attached the top of his uniform. What sort of idiot got so preoccupied with worrying about protecting his son that he forgot to actually do it? 

The front door opened as Clark hopped towards it, yanking on his boots, revealing Johnny on the doorstep. Johnny stared at Clark for a moment in what appeared to be utter disbelief, before rolling his eyes and stepping into the house. 

"What the hell are you doing here?" Clark asked, once he'd gotten over his shock and his heart felt as though it might have started beating again. 

"I live here," Johnny said, shrugging. 

Clark closed his eyes and tried to get his temper under control. He was glad that his son was home. Glad. 

"What I meant," Clark said through gritted teeth, "was how did you get here? You know that you're not supposed to ride on the bus at the moment. You know that you're supposed to wait for me. What were you thinking, Johnny?" 

"I got a lift," Johnny said, trying to walk past Clark and get to his bedroom. 

"Who from?" Clark grabbed Johnny's arm as he passed, and held him still. 

This close, he could see that Johnny's blazer was dirty, and there was a smear of mud across his left cheekbone. His shoes, freshly polished that morning, were badly scuffed, and one of the laces was broken. 

"Have you been in a fight, Johnny?" Clark asked, his grip loosening. Johnny wasn't usually the type to get into fights; he was quiet and kept his head down. 

Johnny took advantage of Clark's concern to slip away and run for his bedroom, slamming the door closed behind him. 

"Jonathan Kent," Clark yelled, hammering on the door. "Come out here right now." 

Clark could rip through the door as though it were paper, but he'd never used his powers to deal with his son, not even when Johnny had been a toddler and Clark could have used a touch of super-speed. 

"I always know that he's in real trouble when you use that name," Martha said quietly from behind Clark. 

Clark could only agree. When he'd named his son, he'd never considered just how strange it would feel shouting out his father's name in anger. 

"He's home safe, Clark," Martha said, squeezing Clark's shoulder gently. "That's all that matters." 

Clark rested his head against the doorframe. Yes, he was relieved beyond the telling of it, but he hadn't thought that Johnny would be foolish enough to accept a ride from someone he could only just have met, even if Clark had been late. How was he supposed to keep Johnny safe if he insisted on being so reckless? 

Clark was almost relieved when the communicator that linked him to the AI in the Fortress began vibrating at his belt. He unhooked the small device and squinted at the display. He managed a tired smile when he recognised the code on the screen; he'd no doubt have a great opportunity to work off some of his frustration that evening. 

"Make sure you set the alarm when I leave, Mom, and let Johnny know where I've gone if he ever emerges," Clark said, pressing a quick kiss to his mom's cheek and then swirling into his costume with a great deal more grace than he'd managed earlier. 

Clark listened to their familiar heartbeats as he speeded away, reassuring himself they were both safe, until distance finally forced him to switch his attention to the tumult developing in the heart of Metropolis. 

* * *

When Clark reached the Suicide Slums, he no longer needed his super-hearing to follow the sounds of gunfire to a disused warehouse on the riverfront. There was no sign of the police, but that was hardly a rare occurrence in that particular part of the city. 

They just waited until the bodies washed up, and did the best that they could from there. 

Clark quickly scanned the warehouse, noting two groups of skeletons at opposite ends of the building. Five men with semiautomatics were firing on two women, who appeared to be trying to protect the last figure, a man huddled behind a stack of crates, clutching a lead-lined briefcase. 

Clark smiled grimly. Even if the AI hadn't informed him that Luthor was involved, he wouldn't have been surprised. It seemed that most of the trouble in Metropolis that required Superman's intervention involved Luthor in some way. 

Clark crashed through the warehouse wall and flew into the path of the bullets, shielding Hope and Mercy. The men at the other end of the warehouse, neatly dressed in smart black suits, inexplicably began firing more rapidly, even though it was clear that the bullets were doing as much harm to Superman as mosquitoes would to a normal man. They ricocheted off Clark's invulnerable body, punching harmlessly through the corrugated iron roof high above his head. 

Hope and Mercy looked almost glad to see him, which was equally inexplicable. Clark had secretly long suspected that the women were actually only capable of one facial expression. 

"Superman, you have to help the boss," Mercy yelled, jerking her head toward the pile of crates behind her. "He's hurt." 

Clark felt a small chill of fear slither through his belly, a weak echo of concern that should have died twenty years ago. 

He nodded to Mercy. "I'm going to give you a count of three, and then I'm going to move. I'll get Luthor and take him to safety. Then I'll come back for you." 

"We're okay, Superman. We can easily take care of these guys if we're not worrying about protecting the boss." 

Mercy and Hope's faces set into their more usual expressions of grim determination and Clark frowned. He knew exactly how Hope and Mercy intended to take care of the men, and he couldn't allow it. Luthor could wait a few more minutes while he sorted out the situation in the warehouse. 

He flicked his vision to x-ray and scanned the crates. Luthor was curled into the foetal position, one hand tangled in the front of a shirt that had once been pale violet, but was now mostly blood red. His heartbeat fluttered in Clark's ears, weak and irregular. 

The coldness crept up from Clark's stomach to his chest. Yes, Luthor was a menace and probably his most dangerous enemy, but Clark couldn't just let him die. 

Clark took a deep breath and then: "One. Two. Three." 

Hope and Mercy were gone before Clark finished saying 'two', fading into the shadows. Clark had no doubt that the men would be dead by the time he returned. Hope and Mercy were excellent at their job. 

As soon as the two women were safely concealed, Clark dived through the boxes, grabbing Luthor and bursting through the warehouse roof into clear sky before the next bullet was even fired. 

Luthor was lighter in his arms than he remembered; angular and awkward to hold. Clark took the opportunity to x-ray him more carefully as he flew them towards Metropolis General. There was a bullet lodged in Luthor's back, scant inches from his spine and his breathing was laboured, something bubbling deep in his chest on every exhale. Clark thought that the shot must have passed straight through Luthor's right lung. 

He flew faster. 

Luthor's hand closing around his arm shocked Clark when he was still a block away from the hospital. 

"No hospital," Luthor whispered, baring bloodstained teeth. "Got my own doctor." 

Clark was in no mood to argue. If Luthor was willing to put his life in the hands of some shady doctor who was probably only willing to be at Luthor's beck and call to feed his crack habit, then so be it. It was Clark's job to save people from desperate situations, not to insist that they get proper medical attention afterwards. 

"If that's what you want, Luthor," Clark said, banking to the right to head towards Luthor's sprawling mansion on the very edge of the city. 

"Not there." Luthor's grip tightened slightly. His voice was little more than a liquid gurgle in the back of his throat. "Take me to the old penthouse." 

Clark didn't hesitate in changing direction once again. Luthor's heart was slowing and his breathing becoming more laboured. His body was cold in a way that had nothing to do with the chill of the air at their current altitude. 

Luthor's doctor and two nurses were waiting for them on the balcony of the penthouse with a tank of oxygen and a stretcher. Clark carefully handed Luthor over to them, noticing with a pang just how pale Luthor's skin had become after their flight. 

Clark almost expected Luthor to sit up and send a few of the usual barbs his way, but his body was limp as the burly nurses manhandled him onto the stretcher. The doctor's eyes were strained as he checked Luthor's pulse. 

"Thank you, Superman," the doctor called up to Clark as the nurses carried Luthor into the penthouse. "I don't think he would have lasted much longer." 

Clark did not know how to feel about that. The world would probably be better off with Luthor dead, but Clark had never been brave, or callous, enough to kill him. He still hoped that he never would be. 

* * *

Luthor's blood made Clark's costume stick to his skin in a way that vaguely sickened him, and he was almost glad to see that the warehouse was completely deserted when he flew back to check it. Hope, Mercy and the men were gone, but so was every piece of evidence that anything untoward had happened there that night. 

Luthor's cleanup team had been as thorough as ever. There weren't even any spent bullet casings left on the floor. Luthor's briefcase and the pool of blood he had been lying in were also gone, and Clark knew that there was little point in trying to find the gunmen. No doubt they would be washing up in Hobb's Bay by the end of the week. 

Clark flew home slowly, hoping that the light drizzle which had just started would wash away some of Luthor's blood and the smell of smoke and violence. He felt uneasy, worried about Luthor, even though he knew that the other man would probably only need a couple of days' bed rest before he was almost fully healed. He hated that he could still be so concerned about Luthor's welfare. 

The last time they had talked as Clark and Lex had been sixteen years ago, when Clark still worked for the Daily Planet. Clark and Lois had been covering the annual LexCorp charity dinner at the Metropolis Hilton, and Clark had accidentally run into Lex in the bathroom after trying to avoid him all night. They had a very stilted conversation about nothing in particular and Lex was perfectly polite, but as distant as he would be with anyone else that he wasn't trying to charm out of their company or into his bed. 

Somehow that had hurt more than their penultimate conversation, a fierce argument at the end of Clark's sophomore year of college that destroyed the last tattered remnants of their friendship. That conversation at the Hilton, and Lex's flat grey eyes as he mouthed pleasantries about the quality of the canaps and decorations in the ballroom, cut Clark in places he didn't even know were vulnerable. If Lex could talk to him as if he were simply a casual acquaintance, as if they had no history, then had he ever truly cared at all? 

Time had taught him that Lex clearly didn't care if Clark lived or died. All of his passion, all of his hatred, had been channelled toward Superman and it annoyed Clark every time that he was reminded that, apparently, he couldn't reach that level of indifference about Lex. 

* * *

Clark's mom was in their small yard pruning the roses when Clark returned home, and Johnny's bedroom door was still closed. Clark was glad, although he would have liked some company. His mom worried too much and Johnny was still too young to have to deal with the more unpleasant truths of being Superman. The Superman they showed on the news was always in time, never made mistakes, and never came home with holes in his cape and another man's blood blurring the clean lines of his family's crest. 

Clark stripped off his damp costume in his bedroom as he made his way to the bathroom, and then bundled it into a bag to take to the Fortress for disposal. Then he turned the shower to the setting which Johnny affectionately referred to as `broil' and stepped under the pounding water, resting his forehead against the cool tiles. 

When, as a teenager, he'd imagined his adult life, it had never been like this. Beyond maybe marrying Lana Lang and pipe dreams of being the star quarterback for the Metros, he'd not really had any concrete ideas on how his future would pan out, but they'd certainly never involved being enemies with his one-time best friend and never being able to save him, no matter how many times he saved his life. 

The water continued to run pink as it sluiced over his body, and he watched it swirl away from him with a sort of detached horror. Lex had lost so much blood and he really should have died this time, but Clark was selfishly glad that Lex was so resilient. No matter how bad things had become between the two of them, Clark couldn't quite let go of the vague hope that one day they'd manage to find some measure of peace. 

Clark stayed in the shower until he tired of the thunder of water against the back of his skull. He'd found himself slipping into this melancholy frame of mind more and more often lately. It wasn't just that Johnny needed him less and less, or that his mom was becoming more fragile and forgetful. It was that everyone Clark knew was changing and moving on, and Clark felt as though he was stuck in a state of inertia, still waiting for his life to really begin. Though he was unwilling to admit it, he needed Lex as a touchstone, a link to a past where everything had seemed possible. Lex was a stable place to rest his feet, as implacable in his hatred as he had ever been in his friendship. 

Clark wrapped himself in a bathrobe and ambled into the kitchen to raid the fridge. There was a plate of sandwiches and a fresh cup of coffee on the countertop. Clark grinned, silently blessing his mom for being able to offer him comfort in her own quiet way. 

He picked up one of the sandwiches and squinted at it. It didn't look like one of his mom's usual sandwiches: the bread looked like it had been hacked off the loaf, rather than sliced and was about three inches thick at one end and almost transparent at the other. Clark sipped at the coffee gingerly. It was almost solid and so bitter that it would be undrinkable without about a bag of sugar added. A Johnny specialty. 

Clark smiled broadly; this was obviously a peace offering. Maybe they could all have a nice family dinner, go to that movie that Johnny had wanted to see, and spend some proper quality time together for once. 

He finished the sandwiches quickly - which pushed the very limits of even his superhuman reflexes, as they disintegrated on contact - and went to knock on Johnny's closed bedroom door. 

"Hey, son, what do you think about going out for dinner, and then going on to the movies?" 

There was silence for a moment, and then Johnny turned his music up so loud that it shook the door in its frame. Clark stepped back, letting his arms fall loosely by his sides. He waited in the hallway for almost ten minutes before giving up and going out into the yard to help his mom with the roses. 

He didn't think that he would ever understand his son. 

* * *

By the time Lois got back from Washington, Clark was about ready to lock Johnny in the house and not let him out again until he was twenty-one. 

"I drop him off at school just fine every morning, but he makes his own way home in the afternoon," Clark moaned as he and Lois drank their coffee in their favourite coffee shop by the Daily Planet. "I park right outside the school doors, but I never see him come out, and by the time I give up and go home, he's there in the living room watching TV." 

Lois covered her smile with the back of her hand. "And how is he managing that?" 

Clark scowled at Lois, stirring his coffee so vigorously that it spilled over the side of the mug and splattered across the tabletop. "He says that he gets a lift home, but I don't know who from. He won't tell me." 

"Our son, International Man of Mystery." Lois chuckled. "He won't tell you if you keep snooping around after him. Why don't you just let him drive himself to school?" 

"He's not safe, Lois." Clark folded his arms across his chest and glared at Lois accusingly. "He needs me there to look out for him." 

Lois gave Clark a black look in return which clearly said, `Don't even start on that, buster.' "He knows to call out for Superman. He's got a panic button that goes straight through to the police. You can't protect him every minute of the day, Clark, and you shouldn't. He's a teenage boy and he needs his space. I know it's difficult, but it's time to let him go a little, let him make his own mistakes." 

This was an old argument, and one which they would likely never resolve. "I admit I'm probably a little overprotective, but I think I've got more reason than most parents. There was always the chance he might start developing powers, and I know all too well what sort of danger that would put him in." 

"He's fifteen and that still hasn't happened, Clark. To all intents and purposes, he's a perfectly normal kid. I think it's about time you let him start having a normal life." Lois nodded firmly, indicating that - as far as she was concerned - the conversation was over. 

Clark sighed and let it go. Lois was still practically vibrating with excitement from her work in Washington. She wasn't likely to be able to concentrate on anything as prosaic as parenting worries. 

"How was Washington?" Clark asked, forcing his own uncertainties aside for the moment. 

Lois flipped her long black hair over her shoulder and settled back in her chair to tell him her news. 

She told Clark about stakeouts and near misses and corruption uncovered at the highest levels of government without seeming to take a breath, her eyes bright and shining. Clark just sat silently and drank in her enthusiasm. She was still the most beautiful, wonderful woman that he had ever known, and he had no doubts that if Johnny had been born ten - or even five - years later, then they would still be together. 

Parenthood had just come at the wrong time for them. Between Lois trying to establish herself at the Daily Planet, Clark starting his first novel, and looking after a baby, there really wasn't enough time to concentrate on their relationship. 

They'd only been dating six months when Lois fell pregnant, and by the time Johnny was three, Clark felt as though he was living with a stranger. Their marriage had limped along for another two years before Lois did the one thing that Clark hadn't been brave enough to do, and asked him for a divorce. 

In the ten years since they'd split up, Clark hadn't met anyone who came anywhere close to measuring up to Lois, which he guessed explained why he was still single. Clark was apparently not so irreplaceable, as Lois had dated three guys seriously, been engaged once and, according to Chloe, her current boyfriend was considering proposing. Chloe thought that Lois would say yes. It still hurt a little to see her with someone else, but Clark had come to realise he had trouble letting go. 

"I'll talk to him over the weekend," Lois said as they got ready to leave. "Maybe he'll be a little more forthcoming with me." 

Lois and Clark both grinned awkwardly as their eyes met. Johnny might have preferred to listen to Lois' tales of journalistic derring-do than Clark's Superman stories, but he was no more likely to open up to his mother than his father. 

"Why don't you see if Johnny wants to invite his new friend over for dinner?" Lois asked as she pushed her chair back under the table. "It might help to set your mind at ease if you get to know the kid." 

* * *

Clark thought Lois' advice was sound, but he didn't think Johnny would go for it. Nevertheless, he tentatively floated the idea over dinner, fully expecting to be shot down. 

Johnny chewed his chicken slowly and appeared to give the matter serious thought. "That'd be great," he said finally, spearing a piece of broccoli. "Would tomorrow be all right for you, Grandma?" 

Martha beamed at Johnny. "Of course it is, dear. Is there anything that your friend likes to eat? I could pick up something fresh from the market tomorrow." 

Johnny managed to summon up a lopsided grin for his grandmother. "I'll ask him when I call. He'll have to ask his dad if it's okay if he comes over, but it should be cool." 

Clark and his mom swapped triumphant smiles over the top of Johnny's bowed head. 

Clark and Martha tried to pry more details out of Johnny about his friend, but Johnny had seemingly exhausted his store of words for the evening and remained tight-lipped. 

The last friend Johnny had had over to the house was Andrew Simms when he was twelve, and that had only been the once. Andrew had broken the head off Johnny's prized Flash action figure and then hidden him down the back of the couch. Once Johnny had discovered poor, decapitated Flash, the hapless Andrew had been summarily dismissed from his life. 

Clark hoped that this visit would run a little smoother. He felt that Johnny probably really needed a friend in his life right now. 

* * *

Clark was waiting by the door when he heard Johnny and his friend walking up the driveway. It was something of a relief: he'd rearranged the bookshelf twice already and was running out of excuses to loiter in the hallway. 

He straightened up when the door opened, ready to bestow a warm Kent welcome on his son's guest. When he saw who was standing next to Johnny in the doorway, however, his cheerful greeting died in his throat. 

It was Julian Luthor. 

Fourteen years ago, Lex Luthor had returned to America - after a year's sabbatical in Europe - with several lucrative contracts, three new LexCorp subsidiaries and a month-old son. No one knew who the boy's mother was and Lex never said a word about her, despite intense speculation in the media. Lex's son was supposed to be at boarding school in England, though, and the last photograph that Clark had seen of him was a grainy telephoto shot taken on the boy's eleventh birthday. He could be mistaken. 

"This is Jules, Dad," Johnny said, gesturing vaguely towards the other boy. 

He wasn't mistaken. Julian fucking Luthor. What was Johnny thinking? 

Clark stared at the boy in mute incredulity. His thick auburn hair had obviously been carefully styled at some point that day, but was now sticking out in random spikes all over his head. His pants were neatly pressed and his white shirt crisp and spotless, however, in sharp contrast to Johnny, who had the unenviable talent of always looking vaguely grubby within seconds of putting on clean clothes. 

He didn't look much like Lex. He was chubby - his frame bulked out by the last vestiges of puppy fat - his eyes a vivid green, and his face almost too pretty, in a way that probably made it an irresistible target for bullies' fists. 

Julian smiled and extended his hand politely. He had Lex's smile. "Thank you for inviting me over, Mr. Kent." 

Clark became aware that he had been standing and staring for a little too long when Johnny sighed deeply. "Can we come in, please, Dad?" 

Julian's smile was wavering slightly, but he was still holding his hand out expectantly. Clark clasped the boy's hand for a moment, feeling a little childish for his hesitation. 

"My pleasure, Julian." Clark dropped Julian's hand, stepping to one side so that the boys could enter the house. "Thank you for giving my son a ride home for the past few weeks." 

Julian's brow furrowed and he looked genuinely puzzled about Clark's gratitude. "I'm not even old enough to drive, Mr. Kent." He then turned so that he was looking straight at Johnny. Clark didn't see any change in Johnny's expression, but Julian nodded and said very firmly, "My dad sends the limo to pick us up." 

Both of the boys looked guileless, but Clark was suspicious for no real reason he could name. Luthors could lie as easy as breathing, it was to be expected, but Clark had never known Johnny to be deceitful. Clark thought that he was probably just on edge, seeing things that weren't there. 

"I'll get you both a drink," Clark said, keeping one eye on the two boys as he made his way to the kitchen. He couldn't believe that Lex had let his son step foot inside Clark's house. Clark knew that he would rather die before he entrusted Johnny to Lex's care. 

Martha was chopping vegetables in the kitchen, and she smiled up at Clark when he walked past her. 

"Was that Johnny and his friend?" Martha asked as Clark rattled about in the fridge. "Does he seem nice?" 

"It's Julian Luthor, Mom. Lex's son." 

As far as Clark was concerned, that was all there was to it. No matter how much Johnny might like his new friend, and how lonely he might be, Clark knew that there was no way that being close to a Luthor could ever be good for his son. 

"I thought that he was away at boarding school somewhere," Martha mused. 

"Yeah, so did I." Clark felt it was something that should have been mentioned in the Centennial Park brochure, along with the six tennis courts and Olympic-size heated swimming pool. 

"Well, it's good that Johnny's made a friend at school." 

"Mom, didn't you hear me?" Clark asked wearily, leaning against the fridge. "It's Julian Luthor." 

"I heard you, Clark," Martha said firmly. "But he's not his father; he's a fourteen-year-old boy." 

"I seem to remember telling you and Dad that Lex wasn't like his father and you never believed me. It turned out you were right all along. If I'd listened to you, I would have saved myself a lot of heartache." 

Martha's thin shoulders hunched, as they often did when her thoughts turned to her late husband. "Well, sometimes I think that maybe we didn't give you the best advice back then. I think you should let Johnny make his own mind up about his friend. He's a good boy; you've got to trust him to make the right decision." 

"Have you been talking to Lois?" Clark asked, frowning. He had thought his mom, more than anyone else, would have understood why Johnny was making such a huge mistake. 

Martha didn't reply, but the clicking of her knife speeded up slightly. 

Clark sighed as he grabbed some drinks from the fridge. Lois didn't know Lex like Clark did. No one did. He might have everyone else fooled that he was a legitimate business man now, but the shoot-out with the gangsters in Suicide Slums was only the latest in a long line of shady situations that Clark had found Lex in. He had just become better at covering his tracks lately. 

Johnny and Julian were sprawled out on the couch in the living room when Clark took them their cans of soda. Or, rather, Johnny was sprawling on the couch, his ratty shoes propped up on the armrest and his head on a cushion inches from Julian's right thigh. Julian was sitting with his legs crossed neatly at the ankle and his back perfectly straight. 

"I've got you boys some Coke, but we've got juice, milk or water if you'd rather," Clark said, holding the cans out to the boys and feeling a bit of a fool for not asking what Julian wanted to drink in the first place. 

"Coke will be great. Thanks, Mr. Kent," Julian said with a smile as he took the proffered can. Johnny waved his hand distractedly about in the air until Clark pressed the other can into his palm. 

"What are you two up to?" Clark asked, fully aware that he might seem sort of creepy, like one of those pathetic fathers who tried to hang out with his kid's friends in a misguided attempt to recapture his youth. The slightly embarrassed-looking frown that Johnny sent his way confirmed that his son at least thought so. 

"We thought we might watch a movie, if we've got enough time before dinner's ready," Julian said when it became obvious that Johnny wasn't going to answer Clark's question. 

"Dinner will be a while yet; you should be okay." Clark's feet didn't seem to want to move, no matter how often he tried to make them. He couldn't just leave his son alone with a Luthor for the rest of the afternoon. 

"Bye, Dad," Johnny said, wiggling his fingers at Clark dismissively. 

Clark could think of no reason to stay, other than sitting on the couch between the two boys and demanding to watch the movie with them. 

Clark gave up and went to work on the last chapter of his novel, which still refused to be written. Five minutes later, he was using his x-ray vision to watch Johnny and Julian in the living room. He didn't stop until his mom called to say that dinner was ready. 

* * *

"Do you need any help with anything, Mrs. Kent?" Julian was asking as Clark entered the kitchen. 

Martha smiled at him gratefully and handed him the gravy to carry over to the table, where Johnny was already sitting, picking at nonexistent fluff on his pants and trying unsuccessfully to look as if he wasn't smiling. 

It was all charmingly domestic, but Clark's worries were still not allayed. He'd seen nothing suspicious as the boys had watched their movie. Julian and Johnny had chatted idly about school and the relative hotness of the actresses in the film in a way that reminded Clark painfully of conversations he and Pete had shared in his Fortress on the farm. 

Julian had done nothing untoward in the whole two hours. He'd even rooted out a coaster for his drink - something that Clark hadn't managed to train Johnny to do in fifteen years. 

But he also remembered that Lex had been charming and polite when he and Clark had been friends. It hadn't stopped him investigating from Clark, hurting him and his family. 

"It's only fried chicken and corn," Martha said as she ushered Julian towards a chair. "It's Johnny's favourite, and he told us that you'd said that you didn't have any preferences for dinner." 

"It smells delicious, Mrs. Kent." Julian sat down and smoothed a napkin over his lap. "Our housekeeper, Mrs. Branch, makes us fried chicken sometimes for a treat. My dad tries to make it seem as though he's doing me a favour by eating it, but I know he enjoys it as much as I do." 

Martha beamed down at Julian and looked suspiciously like she wanted to ruffle his already messy hair. Clark sat down heavily in his own chair, fighting the almost overwhelming urge to pick Julian up by the scruff of his neck and throw him out onto the street, much as he would want to do if his family let a stray cat into their home that Clark just knew was riddled with fleas and disease. 

"How was your day at school, Johnny?" Clark picked up his knife and fork to give his hands something to do that wasn't tightening around the throat of his son's new friend. 

Johnny shrugged, staring blankly at his plate of food as Martha placed it on the table in front of him. 

"Are you and Johnny in any of the same classes, Julian?" Martha asked as she handed out the rest of the plates before taking the free chair next to Julian, eschewing her usual seat next to Clark. 

"His name is Jules," Johnny said before Julian had the chance to reply. 

Julian blushed. "Really, I don't mind, Johnny." 

"You don't like Julian?" Martha inquired gently. "I've always thought it was a very nice name." 

"It's just that my dad named me after his brother who died as a baby." Julian pushed his potatoes around his plate with the tines of his fork. "He says that, although he thought it was a good idea at the time, it just felt too strange to keep on calling me that, so I've pretty much always been Jules. I don't mind if you'd rather call me Julian, though." 

Clark was suddenly reminded of Lex cradling a blanket that he was sure was his brother Julian while he was strung out on the drugs his father had been feeding him. He shuddered. The image still had the power to unnerve him even now. 

"Yeah, sounds familiar," Johnny muttered. 

There was a small bubble of silence following Johnny's words, filled with only the scrape of cutlery against plates. Lois was the only one in their little family who ever called Johnny by his given name; it was just too painful for Clark and Martha. Clark sometimes wished that they'd called him Conner, which had been Lois' preferred name all along. He'd never known that Johnny was bothered by his name, though. 

"Well, you'll be Jules here, too, from now on," Martha said with a small smile. Julian smiled sweetly at her in return and flushed an even deeper shade of red. 

Clark glowered at his mom, not liking the indication that Julian would be welcome in the house again, but she didn't look his way long enough to catch his expression. 

* * *

Dinner was awful, at least as far as Clark was concerned. His mom continued to look at Julian as though she wanted to adopt him, or at least pinch his cheeks until he begged her to stop. Johnny even laughed a couple of times as Julian held court with his stories about the strange rituals of English boarding schools. 

It was when Julian offered to wash the dishes after the meal that Clark began to suspect that the boy was actually an amazingly lifelike android that Lex had produced in one of his labs. 

His mom, however, gratefully accepted and hustled Julian over to the sink before the boy had the chance to change his mind. Johnny leaned over the table towards Clark as soon as Martha and Julian were out of earshot. 

"You don't like him, do you?" Johnny hissed. 

That was far too complicated to answer right there, especially with Julian so close. 

"It's not that I don't like him, Johnny -" 

"Well, it sure looks like it, Dad. You've done nothing but glare at him all night like you were just itching to use your heat-vision on him. Grandma likes him, and he's the only person at that entire fucking school who's treated me like an actual human being, despite the fact that you don't earn seven figures a year." 

Clark was torn between berating Johnny for his bad language and misplaced affections, and just hugging him tightly because this was one of the longest conversations they'd had in over two years, even if Johnny was mad at him. 

Clark was saved from his indecision by the doorbell ringing. 

"That'll be my dad," Julian said to Martha, "but I'll help you finish up here before I go." 

Clark's stomach dropped. Logically, it was obvious that Lex would know where Clark lived, but the thought that Lex could conceivably just walk straight up to their front door any time he liked made Clark's skin crawl. He didn't think that Lex Luthor would be stopped by their new alarm system and triple-strength locks if he really wanted to get inside the house. 

It made Clark all the more determined to dissuade Johnny from hanging around with Julian. 

"Dad?" Johnny tugged on Clark's sleeve, trying to regain his attention. 

"I'll get the door," Clark said, getting up from his seat hurriedly. 

He didn't want to see Lex, but he wanted Lex to talk to his mom or Johnny even less. Johnny made a small sound of disgust, but let his hand drop from Clark's arm. 

It was going to be fine, Clark told himself as he strode down the hallway. All he had to do was return Lex's son to him, and then he'd leave and Clark would make sure that Johnny understood that he wasn't to invite Julian around ever again. It wasn't as though they had to speak or anything. 

Lex was leaning against the doorframe, tapping the buttons on his cell phone forcefully, when Clark yanked the door open. Clark hadn't seen him this close in years without the fog of rage and fear clouding his vision, and he looked unchanged from when Clark had first met him back in Smallville. His skin was still unmarred by lines - there weren't even any crow's feet at the corners of his eyes - and something told Clark that, if Lex had hair, there wouldn't be a single strand of grey in it. He was even dressed the same way that he had when he was younger and trying to be casual: a form-fitting grey sweater that looked as if it would be soft to the touch and exquisitely tailored black pants. It was like stepping back in time. 

Lex seemed to sense Clark's scrutiny and he snapped his phone shut and slipped it into his pocket. He favoured Clark with the smallest of smiles and a slightly raised eyebrow. 

"Hello, Clark. I'm here to pick up my son. I hope he hasn't been too much trouble." 

"He's washing dishes with my mom. He shouldn't be long." 

Lex chuckled. "I suspect you're surprised that any child of mine even knows how to find the sink, never mind wash dishes." 

"I never thought anything of the sort," Clark lied. "He seems like a very helpful boy." 

Lex nodded, his eyes meeting Clark's. "He is. I hope that you haven't let your opinion of me affect how you view him." 

"Of course not," Clark replied, holding Lex's gaze steadily. 

"Hey, Dad," Julian said, appearing at Clark's elbow. "Are you ready to go?" 

Lex broke eye contact with Clark immediately to smile at his son. His expression was softer than Clark had ever seen it before. "Did you enjoy your meal?" 

"It was delicious. Mrs. Kent is a great cook." Julian said, moving to stand by his father's side. 

Lex reached down and smoothed a lock of hair from Julian's forehead with one black-gloved hand. "Come on, we'd better leave the Kents to enjoy the rest of their evening in peace." 

"Okay." Julian smiled up at Lex in a way that Clark dimly remembered Johnny used to smile at him years ago. It made his heart tighten in his chest. "Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Kent." 

"My pleasure, Julian," Clark said, his voice coming out scratchy and raw in a way he wished he could hide. Lex's eyes flitted towards Clark for an instant, and Clark could almost believe he saw concern in their depths, before Lex put his arm around Julian's shoulders and led the boy away from the house. 

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" Johnny asked from behind Clark. 

Clark watched Julian and Lex climb into Lex's waiting Porsche and pull away before he answered. 

"I don't want you getting mixed up with the Luthors, Johnny. They're bad news." He closed the door and rested his back against it. 

Johnny was standing in the doorway to his room, ready to retreat at a moment's notice, his face flushed with uncharacteristic anger. "Mom told me you were obsessed with trying to prove Lex Luthor's some sort of monster. She says that she can't dig up any dirt on Mr. Luthor, and she's the best journalist there is. Besides, even if it were true, Jules isn't his dad any more than I'm you." 

God, it was like hearing himself arguing with his parents all those years ago. "I know that, son, but I see lots of things as Superman that your mom will never get to see. Lex might look like a good man on the outside, but he's rotten at the core." 

"I still don't see why that means you don't like Jules or think that I shouldn't be friends with him," Johnny spat. 

"Because Lex used to be my best friend, and that didn't stop him betraying me and my friends. I used to think he was a good man, too - but, believe me, it was only a faade he used to trick people into thinking that they could trust him." It was painful talking about this still. The wounds were rawer than Clark had ever imagined. 

"And Jules couldn't possibly be different? What did Mr. Luthor do to you that was so bad, anyway?" 

Clark closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cool wood of the door. "He investigated me, Johnny, every aspect of my life, even after he promised me he'd stopped. If he'd found out what I am, I don't think he would have hesitated in locking me up in a lab and experimenting on me just to see what the limits of my powers were. He used to do that, you know, take away people like me who were different and do all sorts of horrible tests on them. That's the sort of man he is; he wouldn't let friendship get in the way of anything he wanted. You're lucky that you're not like me, that you don't have any powers to hide. But, given what he always suspected about me, I can't trust him around you. I'm just scared for you." 

"God, you always say that," Johnny screamed. "How am I fucking lucky, Dad? I understand that you had it tough when you were a kid but, powers or not, it's not as easy for me as you like to think, you know. I'm still a freak, I still look at all the kids in my class and know that I'm not like them and I never will be. Do you know what I learned in Biology last week? Well, it turns out that when two species interbreed, that even if the offspring's viable, they're usually infertile. Is that lucky, Dad?" 

Clark's eyes sprang open and he stared at his son in horror. "Johnny, I'm sorry. I never even thought -" 

"Of course you didn't," Johnny said, taking a step backwards into his room. "You've spent so much time thinking about how great it was that I was so normal that you've never even bothered to think about all the ways I might be different and what that might mean to me." 

Johnny slammed his door shut again, but this time Clark heard the soft snick of the lock following it. 

Clark slid down to sit on the floor and rested his head in his hands. Was this why Johnny never talked to him anymore? Were all the words he had for his father usually just too painful to speak? 

* * *

Clark's mom didn't want to hear anything against Julian, declaring him a `sweet boy', and she was clearly unfazed by his dubious parentage. Lois laughed off his concerns and then went on to show him article after article that she'd written, detailing Lex's tireless work for charity. Clark was beginning to think she had a bit of a crush on Lex. 

Clark sought refuge with the only person he could still trust. 

"Clark, I think you're overreacting," Chloe said when Clark had finished his anti-Luthor tirade. 

"Am I the only one who remembers what Lex did in Smallville?" Clark had apparently overestimated Chloe. "He's not a good man, Chloe. He's just got better spin doctors nowadays." 

"Clark," Chloe leaned across the coffee table and squeezed Clark's knee gently, "I do remember. I also know that he's changed a lot since then. Lois and I have tried to dig up some dirt on him, but we've found nothing. He's clean, and his company is clean." 

"I've seen him with weapons dealers, gangsters, and super villains when I'm patrolling as Superman. He might keep his business aboveboard, but at night it's a different story." 

Chloe smirked. "As far as I can tell, there's not much going on then, either." 

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." Clark scowled at Chloe and pulled his knee away from her hand. "So I take it that you think that it's okay that my son is hanging around with Luthor's kid, too?" 

"Jules seems like a really nice boy," Chloe said with a shrug. 

"How do you know what he's like?" 

Chloe looked a little guilty, staring at her hands as she clasped them together and then rested them on her lap. "Well, remember how Lois, Richard and I were going to take Johnny to the Metros' game on Sunday?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, something came up at the paper, and Richard had to go into the office. It seemed a shame to let the ticket go to waste..." 

"So you took Julian along with you," Clark finished, raking his fingers through his hair in frustration. "After I told Johnny that he couldn't spend time with Julian anymore." 

"Johnny didn't tell you?" 

"Of course he didn't tell me. When was the last time Johnny told me anything important?" Johnny used to be a good kid, a little uncommunicative, sure, but he didn't lie and he didn't disobey his father. A few weeks with the Luthor boy and he was practically delinquent. 

"You know I love Johnny," Chloe said slowly, as though she was testing every word carefully in her head before speaking, "but even I've got to admit that he's not exactly the easiest kid to get along with. Jules seems to like spending time with him, though, and last Sunday was the first time for God knows how long that I've actually heard Johnny laugh. We had fun, Clark." 

Clark scowled. "I'd rather he had fun with someone else. Anyone else." 

"Who was the last friend of his own age that Johnny had? That kid who killed the Flash? That can't be good for him." 

"It's not that I don't want him to have friends, Chloe. I just wish he'd show better judgement in picking them." 

"Just like you did at his age?" Chloe asked, getting right to the root of Clark's problem in that irritatingly perceptive way she had. 

"I don't want him to make the same mistakes I did," Clark said with finality, and then asked Chloe about her husband's adventures in Chile. 

Chloe frowned, but allowed his unsubtle change of topic. Clark knew that he was just getting a short reprieve; Chloe wouldn't let this go. Next time, she'd probably bring Lois as backup and then there would be no way that he would have a chance of escaping except to change his mind. 

Chloe was in the middle of a long and convoluted tale about Stuart, some Australian backpackers and a half-pound bag of weed when Johnny shuffled into the living room. 

"Hey, Dad, we're going to be late," Johnny said, waving his hand slightly to acknowledge Chloe while glaring at Clark. 

"You look really handsome, Johnny," Chloe said brightly, grinning at her godson. 

Johnny blushed, shuffling his feet. "Thanks, Auntie Chloe," he mumbled to the carpet. 

Clark studied his son closely for a moment. He was wearing the new suit he had worn to his Aunt Lucy's engagement party the month before and a deep blue shirt that Lois had bought him because it `brought out the colour of his eyes'. For once, his hair looked as if it had been brushed sometime that day and wasn't hanging over his eyes as it usually did. He did look handsome, Clark thought, and very grown up. 

When Clark thought about his son, he had the tendency to default his age to about ten, when he was still all elbows and bony knees and thought his father was infallible. Now Johnny was almost six foot tall and starting to lose the ungainly appearance caused by his sudden growth spurt of the year before. Clark was forced to confront the fact that his son was almost an adult, and very soon he'd be going off to college and away from Clark's protection for good. The thought appalled him. 

"Where are you two going tonight?" Chloe asked, getting up from the couch and grabbing her bag. 

Johnny shrugged. "Just a concert at school." 

"Well, I hope you have a fantastic evening." Chloe leaned over to kiss Clark's cheek, and then gave him the smug grin of someone who was going home to drink red wine and watch TV and not sit through two hours of teenagers butchering classical music. Clark scowled at her. 

"Have fun," Chloe said, patting Johnny on the shoulder as she left. "I wish I were going with you." 

Johnny managed a weak smile for Chloe, and then turned back to glare at Clark. "I'll be waiting in the car, Dad. I don't want to be late." 

* * *

The Centennial Park Boys' School auditorium was far more impressive than many professional theatres that Clark had been to, which made the five dollars that he was asked to pay for a program even more galling. 

"The amount I'm paying for you to come here, you'd have thought I'd have gotten a free program," he grumbled as he and Johnny found their seats. 

"Dad!" Johnny groaned, his shoulders hunching up like a turtle trying to hide in its shell. 

Clark flicked through the program listlessly as they waited for the concert to start, trying not to stare too hard at the other parents in the audience. 

It was like a Who's Who of Metropolis society. Scott Edwards, CEO of Deward's Financial, was sitting two rows back with his wife, who was wearing a dress that looked as if it might have cost more than Clark's house. At one end of Clark and Johnny's row was Hannah Carmichael, the actress, getting very cosy with someone who wasn't her husband. She looked to be filling her dress slightly better than when Clark had last seen her on TV. A quick scan with his x-ray vision revealed that the rumours about plastic surgery which she'd tried to deny the month before were true. 

Clark snickered and then stole a glance along the other end of the row, where he noticed a very familiar bald head. 

"Johnny, is there any particular reason that you wanted to come to this concert?" Clark asked, nudging his son with his elbow. "You've never shown any interest in classical music before." 

Johnny shrugged, shifting in his seat so that he was sitting as far away from Clark as possible without moving onto the lap of the man next to him. Clark looked at the program more closely. The name he had suspected he'd see was on page four. 

"Apparently, Julian Luthor is performing a violin solo. That's interesting, isn't it?" 

Johnny crossed his arms over his chest and turned his head very deliberately away from Clark. Clark was almost tempted to drag Johnny home, but he figured that sitting through the concert would be punishment enough. 

* * *

The concert wasn't as dreadful as Clark had feared it would be - some of the children were truly talented - but he was gratified to see that Johnny's eyelids began drooping about half an hour in. Maybe school concert as punishment was something he should think about using again in the future. 

When Julian's name was announced, however, Johnny's eyes snapped open and he sat straight up in his seat, staring at the stage in rapt attention. A quick sideways glance showed Clark that Lex had assumed the same position. Clark settled back and prepared himself to be wowed. No doubt Julian had been taught by the very best tutors that money could buy, and Clark dimly recalled that Lex was quite talented at the piano. 

He couldn't have been more wrong. Julian was awful. Clark watched Lex's face throughout the boy's performance with a perverse sort of fascination. Lex was smiling - although it did look a little forced - and his eyebrows twitched at every soured note. His hands were gripping the arms of his seat so tightly that Clark was surprised they didn't snap right off. 

Julian would doubtless be on the receiving end of some rather harsh criticism when he came offstage. If Clark knew anything about Luthors, it was that they couldn't tolerate failure. 

Johnny disappeared as soon as the lights came on to signal the start of the intermission, obviously eager to avoid any sort of confrontation with his father, and Clark wandered off to find the bathroom. 

On his way back, he noticed that Julian had joined his father at the end of the empty row of seats and they were engaged in some sort of heated discussion. For reasons that he didn't care to examine too closely, Clark changed his course and hid behind a pillar that he hoped would shield him from the Luthors' view but still kept him within earshot without even using his super-hearing. 

"I was bad," Julian was saying, kicking his shiny shoes against the back of the seat in front of him. "Really, really bad." 

Lex's fixed grin was so wide by now that it looked almost painful. "It was a very interesting interpretation of the piece." 

"Dad, I was terrible." Julian laughed, leaning against his father a little. "I don't think I got more than about four notes right." 

"You might have been a little rusty," Lex conceded. "You didn't really put in that much practice." 

"Maybe you could commission a special piece for me that only involves four notes?" 

Lex's grin looked more genuine at this. He took his Blackberry out of his pocket and appeared to take a note of Julian's suggestion. "I could also look into producing a line of LexCorp violins that only have one string especially for you to use when you play it." Lex made a note of that as well. 

"Or, alternatively, we could admit that I'm no better at the violin than I was at the piano or the oboe," Julian said in a more serious tone. "I have all the musical ability of a rock. A tone deaf rock." 

Lex looked at his son for a moment, his eyes slightly narrowed. Clark was sure that this was when he would start on a speech about how Luthors weren't quitters and how failure wasn't an option. 

Instead, Lex smoothed his son's unruly hair and smiled gently. "Maybe music just isn't your thing, but you've given it your best shot and I'm proud of you for that." Lex's expression turned speculative. "Perhaps we could look into art lessons instead." 

Julian laughed again, bumping his shoulder against Lex's. 

To Clark's dismay, Johnny chose that moment to wander back from wherever he'd spent most of the intermission. Julian beckoned him over enthusiastically and Johnny complied with a small, slightly self-conscious-looking grin. 

"Hey, Jules," Johnny said, his eyes downcast. "I thought you played really well." 

Lex looked triumphant. "A man with taste, I like that." He held out a hand for Johnny to shake. "Johnny Kent, I presume." 

Johnny hesitated for a moment, but then clasped Lex's hand briefly. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Luthor." 

Clark felt the heat rise in his face and he had to fight the urge to grab hold of Johnny and super-speed him away from Lex immediately. Instead he contented himself with pushing his fists against the pillar that he was hiding behind until the plaster cracked. 

"Do you like ice hockey, Johnny?" Lex asked, gesturing for Johnny to take a seat. 

Johnny nodded vaguely, toeing at the carpet but otherwise not moving. 

"Well, Jules and I are planning on going to the next Mammoths' game if you'd like to join us. Jules told me how much fun he had with you and your family at the football game last weekend, and I'd like to return the favour." 

This was how it started, Clark thought. Lex had offered him tickets, limo rides and nights out in the city and Clark had thought he was the coolest guy in the world despite all other evidence to the contrary. Now he was trying to do the same thing with Clark's son and Clark wasn't going to stand idly by while he did so. 

"Come on, Johnny, we're going home." Clark said, marching over to his son and the Luthors. 

"Clark, what a surprise," Lex said, not sounding surprised in the least. "I was just asking Johnny if he wanted to come and watch a hockey game with us. You're more than welcome to join us as well." 

"Thanks for the offer, Lex," Clark said, grabbing Johnny's arm, "but I'm afraid we'll have to decline." 

Clark dragged the protesting Johnny out of the auditorium, cursing the day he'd met Lex Luthor and the circumstances that had brought Johnny to his attention now. He knew all too well the allure the Luthor lifestyle could have for a fifteen-year-old boy, but he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that Johnny resisted it more successfully than he had done. 

Whatever his family and friends might believe, he didn't think Lex had changed or could ever change, and he couldn't imagine that there was anything the other man could possibly do to make him think otherwise. 

* * *

Clark leaned on a fencepost and sighed contentedly. He was sure that coming to the farm for the weekend would be the best thing for Johnny. They could spend some quality time together, and maybe Clark could bring Johnny round to his way of thinking away from the pernicious influence of the Luthors. 

However, Johnny had ignored all of Clark's attempts at conversation on the drive to Smallville, and had holed himself up in Clark's old Fortress as soon as they'd arrived. Clark was determined that he was going to reconnect with his son somehow now he had him to himself for two whole days, and there was little else to do on the farm nowadays but talk. Most of the land had been sold off when Martha had moved to Metropolis but Clark had managed to keep hold of the house, even though it had been a stretch at times, because sometimes he just needed to be in Smallville. If he tried really hard, he could probably find a few chores for Johnny to do, but there was nothing like the work to do on the farm that there had been when Clark was younger. 

At one time, he'd harboured vague hopes of Johnny taking over the farm, much as his own father had probably hoped of him, but Johnny was Metropolis to the bone. Clark often wondered what his father would have thought of his grandson, who was scared of chickens and could barely tell one end of a cow from the other. 

He would have loved him, though, Clark was sure of that. 

* * *

It was always strange for Clark to walk up the stairs to the Fortress and see his son there. It was like looking in on his own past, especially now. As a child, Johnny had favoured Lois over Clark in looks, but as he'd grown older, he'd started resembling Clark as a teenager so closely that Clark found it eerily reminiscent of looking at old photographs of himself at the same age. 

Johnny was slumped on the ratty old couch that Clark had recently acquired to replace the one that had served him so well throughout his teenage years, flicking through a book. Clark wondered whether his own father had felt the same mix of fear and pride as Clark did now whenever he stood in this very spot and looked at Clark. 

Clark had never expected the same worries with Johnny as Jonathan had experienced with him, however. Until recently, Johnny had been a normal boy with normal problems and Clark didn't think he was equipped to deal with this. He'd resented his own father's meddling and had never truly understood just how scared Jonathan must have been that Clark was friends with Lex. He now admired his restraint. 

"What are you looking at, son?" Clark asked, walking the last few steps to stand behind the couch. 

Johnny flipped the book closed and held it up to show Clark the cover. It was one of Clark's old yearbooks. 

"Anything interesting?" 

"You had really, really bad hair," Johnny said with a smirk. 

"You can talk." Clark grinned and reached out to ruffle Johnny's tangled curls. Johnny flinched and ducked away from Clark's hand as though afraid that Clark was going to hit him. 

Clark let his hand fall slowly to rest on the back of the couch. His stomach churned with guilt even though he knew he'd never once raised his hand to Johnny in anger. What had happened to make his son fear his touch? Johnny hadn't welcomed physical demonstrations of affection for some time, but he'd never actually shied away from Clark before. Clark had presumed that it was just a teenage thing, that Johnny felt that he was too old for hugs, but now he wasn't so sure. 

"I'm going to head into town to pick up some groceries. Do you want to come along with me?" Clark asked, fully expecting the answer to be no. 

He suspected that Johnny had no desire to spend any more time with him than was strictly necessary and the whole trip might have been in vain. He didn't even want to consider that there may be no way back from the way they were now, the thought made him feel sick to his stomach. 

Johnny closed his eyes and appeared to give the question great thought, before nodding curtly. "Yeah, okay then." 

Clark smiled and resisted the urge to squeeze Johnny's shoulder as he wanted to. If he could play by Johnny's rules and respect the boundaries he had drawn then maybe, just maybe, they could someday regain their old closeness. 

* * *

Johnny was quiet during the drive into town, but it was a comfortable sort of quietness. Clark found himself turning garrulous in his relief and he kept up a running commentary on everything that they passed. Johnny even grinned once or twice, although he'd heard every single story a hundred times before. 

"Why did you do it?" Johnny asked as Clark pointed out the spot where he'd defeated a particularly nasty Kryptofreak who'd had a whole host of noxious bodily secretions that he had been using to poison people he didn't like - which had turned out to be most of the town. 

"Do what?" 

"You could have used your powers to be anything you wanted, do anything you wanted, and you chose to risk yourself to protect people who would never even know you were the one who saved them." 

Clark hadn't thought about that for a long time. Superman was such an integral part of his life now that he almost forgot that there had been a time when he'd wanted to be normal, sometimes even wished his powers away. 

"Your grandfather always said that I had my powers for reason, that they were a gift. I didn't believe that for the longest time, but after I became Superman and I saw all the good I could do, I came to see that he was right." 

Johnny looked thoughtful, but didn't say anything more until they reached the town limits. 

Then he cocked his head to one side as though he'd heard something interesting, ad asked, "Can we stop at the Talon and get coffee before we go shopping?" 

Clark strained his super-hearing to its limits but he couldn't hear anything that might have attracted the boy's attention. 

"Sure, son." Clark smiled happily at Johnny. "That sounds great." 

Clark was still smiling as he parked the truck. He couldn't quite get a handle on Johnny's wild changes of mood, but if he was willing to suggest spending some time with Clark off his own back then perhaps the situation wasn't as grim as he had feared. 

Clark's buoyant mood lasted exactly as long as it took him to walk through the doors of the Talon and notice the two familiar figures standing at the counter. 

"What the hell are you doing here?" Clark growled, grabbing Lex by the shoulder and yanking the other man around to face him. 

Lex shrugged out of Clark's grasp and took a step backwards to stand between Julian and Clark as though he feared Clark might make a grab for the boy as well, which was just ridiculous. 

"The flippant answer would be that I'm buying a coffee, but I can sense that you're in no mood for flippancy." Lex's voice was carefully modulated and calm, but Clark could hear the anger thrumming beneath. "For some inexplicable reason my son evinced a desire to see the mansion this weekend despite never having shown any previous interest in visiting my old stomping ground. I must admit I was puzzled by his sudden interest in family history, but everything is starting to become clearer now." 

"Hey, Jules," Johnny said, nudging past Clark and walking over to his friend. 

"Hello, Johnny," Julian replied, stepping around his father to greet Johnny. "What a pleasant surprise." 

"Jonathan Kent, go back to the truck right now," Clark growled, striving for some of Lex's sang-froid and failing utterly. 

Johnny looked away from Julian and met Clark's eyes levelly. "No." 

Clark anger was like a living thing, rising hot in his throat and threatening to choke him. He was about to break every one of his own rules of parenting and bodily remove Johnny from the coffee shop, maybe speed him all the way to the Fortress in the Arctic and leave him there for some serious time out, when a gentle hand on his arm stopped him. 

"Don't do anything you'd regret, Clark," Lex said softly. "Let's talk about this like rational adults and see if we can reach some sort of amicable solution. Besides, we seem to be attracting a lot of attention." 

Lex was right. Every pair of eyes in the Talon was on them, staring at the crazy man who looked about ready to tear his son into pieces just for talking to his friend. Clark hadn't even noticed the sudden silence caused by the cessation of a dozen or so conversations. 

He breathed deeply to calm himself, and then allowed Lex to lead him towards a free table. 

"What do you suggest we do about this, then?" Clark asked as he seated himself. 

"About what?" Lex arched an eyebrow as he took the seat opposite Clark. "Unlike you, I have no particular problem that our sons want to be friends. I will be having a serious conversation with Jules later about misguiding me as to the true nature of his request to spend the weekend in Smallville, but I have no desire to stop him from spending time with Johnny. If he'd told me, I would have brought him here anyway." 

"So you're telling me you knew nothing about this?" Clark asked, shredding a napkin to give his itching fingers something to do. 

"Yes, and I don't know why Jules felt he had to lie to me about it." Lex's face was open and his expression seemed honest, but it had been a long time since Clark had trusted any appearance of honesty on Lex's part. "Truthfully, Clark, do you have any real objections to Jules, or is it merely the fact that he's _my_ son that offends you?" 

Clark glanced over to where Johnny and Julian were sitting at the counter. Julian was waving his hands around madly, obviously in the midst of some wild tale and Johnny's head was bowed over his coffee, but Clark could see that he was grinning. 

"No, Julian seems like a nice boy," Clark admitted grudgingly. Lex smiled as though Clark had paid him the greatest of compliments. 

"Believe me, Jules is nothing like I was at his age, or even like I was when I first met you, if that helps you feel any more kindly toward him." Lex leaned over the table towards Clark, his voice becoming lower. "Your father didn't want us to be friends either, and yet you didn't let that stop you." 

"And look how well that turned out," Clark said, moving away from Lex slightly, uncomfortable with the other man invading his personal space. 

He'd forgotten how Lex had the tendency to do that, get closer than was normally acceptable. He hadn't forgotten how it used to make him feel and the heat was rising in his face unbidden exactly as it had twenty-odd years ago. 

"There's no reason that it should be the same in this case, Clark." Lex didn't move away despite Clark's obvious discomfort. His grey eyes glittered. "If my son wants to be friends with yours, then I'm going to do nothing to stop him, whatever my personal feelings for his father might be. Do you remember that I once told you that I'd do anything to help my friends? Imagine how much more true that is as regards my son." 

"Is that a threat?" Clark asked, glowering at Lex. 

He could still whisk Johnny off to the Arctic and they could stay there out of harm's, and Luthors', way until he was ready to start college. Which would preferably be on Mars. 

"Not a threat," Lex said, finally leaning back in his chair. "Just a warning. I'm not going to comply with your wishes. If Jules has decided that his friendship with your son is worth incurring your wrath and lying to me, then I'm going to do everything in my power to ensure it continues." 

"So I'm supposed to sit back and let Johnny make what I think is a huge mistake?" 

"If it does turn out to be a mistake, which I personally doubt, then you'll be there to pick up the pieces. That's what a father does. I think both of us know intimately exactly how damaging it can be when parents try and make their children into what they wish them to be rather than letting them be who they truly are." 

Clark thought about Jor-El demanding his obedience and trying to mould him into something that he didn't want to be. He thought about Lionel chipping away at Lex until there was nothing left but a shell of who he used to be; an imperfect copy of his father. He didn't want that for Johnny. He wanted Johnny to be better than both Lex and himself. 

"Okay," Clark said wearily. "Do I get to hear your solution then?" 

Lex looked genuinely surprised at Clark's question, but he quickly hid his expression behind clasped hands. "We can treat this weekend as a test run and see if we can work out an arrangement that acceptable to all of us. I don't expect us to be friends again, Clark, but I hope that we can at least be civil, if only for our children's sakes." 

"You could both come over for dinner tonight at the farm." Clark could hardly believe that he was speaking the words even as they were coming out of his mouth. 

This was Lex Luthor, for God's sake. He'd possibly just made the most stupid mistake of his life. Johnny did seem happier around Julian, however, and Clark could finally admit that maybe the boy might be good for his son, who'd spent far too long alone. 

It seemed Lex couldn't believe what Clark was saying either. He blinked rapidly, as though he wasn't sure if it really was Clark Kent sitting in front of him or a pod person who'd been put in his place while Lex wasn't looking. 

"That sounds good, Clark." Lex offered Clark a small smile before quickly looking away from him and casting his eye over the newly muted decorations of the recently refurbished Talon. "This place looks very different to the last time I was here," he said, his attention fixing on a tasteful watercolour hanging above Clark's head. "I like it." 

"You said it yourself, Lex, we should be civil but that doesn't mean that I actually want to talk to you when I don't have to," Clark said as he stood up from his seat. He frowned warningly at Lex. "I'll see you tonight. Make sure you bring something for dessert." 

* * *

Johnny actually helped Clark make dinner, which was a first as far as Clark could recall. Clark hadn't cooked for himself for years as his mom wouldn't let anyone else near her kitchen to make anything more than a sandwich. 

He really should have practiced some more before he promised to make dinner for other people. 

Johnny poked at the potatoes with a fork hesitantly from a distance as if he were afraid they were going to explode. "These don't look like they do when Grandma makes them." 

Clark glanced over at the pan and frowned. They certainly didn't look very appetising. 

"And I think you put the beef in too early," Johnny said, peering into the oven 

"Johnny, maybe you could go and set the table?" Clark said sharply, steering his son out of the kitchen. 

Clark was almost certain that the meal was going to be a disaster, no matter how the food turned out. He doubted he would be able to get through the evening without fighting with Lex about something. It was going to be difficult to bite his tongue and play nice with the other man, knowing what he knew about the other him, but he would have to try for Johnny's sake. 

Johnny seemed grateful, although he hadn't said as much. He had smiled on several occasions during the afternoon and had put up only a token resistance when Clark asked him to help him with the housework. 

Clark was starting to think that however the evening went, it was worth it to see Johnny happy. 

* * *

Clark heard the familiar throaty purr of a finely-tuned European sports car rolling along the driveway at exactly eight o'clock. Inexplicably, his stomach clenched in the old way upon hearing the sound, which he passed off as nervousness about the evening ahead. It was the only explanation he cared to accept. 

When Clark opened the door, Julian was standing on the stoop holding a large waxed box. Over Julian's shoulder, Clark could see Lex futzing about with his Porsche, and his stomach clenched even tighter. 

"It's an apple pie, Mr. Kent," Julian explained as he passed the box to Clark. "You asked us to bring dessert." 

Clark offered Julian a watery smile. The boy was wearing a smart green button-down shirt and black pants which looked like scaled-down versions of the clothes Lex habitually wore. He looked a little overdressed for an informal meal with his friend, and Clark had to wonder whether Julian dressed like that all of the time, or that the Luthors simply didn't get many invitations that weren't black tie. 

"Thank you, Julian," Clark said, finding a warmer smile for the boy in sympathy. "Johnny should be in the dining room." 

Seeing Lex saunter over looking sleek and dangerous in one of his customary sharply-tailored black suits made Clark suddenly wish that he'd taken the time to change out of his frayed shirt and gravy-stained jeans. 

"I've brought a little something for us to drink with our dinner," Lex said, holding up two bottles of very expensive-looking wine with indecipherable labels covered in curlicues and dust. "I didn't know what we were eating, so I brought white and red." 

"I don't drink," Clark said gruffly, taking the bottles from Lex. 

"Well, something for me to drink, then." Lex's expression didn't falter, although his shoulders did droop a little. 

"I suppose you should come in." Clark found it hard to say and even harder to stand back and watch Lex walk into his house. "Dinner's almost ready." 

Lex paused in the hallway, looking around slowly as if he were comparing the farmhouse of reality with the one in his memory. His quick eyes paused on all the places where there had been changes in the twenty years since he had last visited the Kent farm: the space on the dresser that had once held a photograph of Clark and his parents, the slightly lighter coloured patch of paint on the wall where a painting had hung. 

For his own part, Clark studied Lex. He seemed just as out of place in the cosy warmth of the farmhouse as he ever had as a twenty-one-year-old, somehow more real than his subdued surroundings. 

What had changed was the anxiety Clark felt around Lex, or at least its source. He'd grown used to dealing with Lex in the dark of night and behind the shield of his Superman costume. He'd never had any protection from Lex as Clark Kent. 

"Do you need any help with the food?" Lex asked as he finished his perusal of the decorations and half-turned towards Clark. 

"I think I can manage roast beef on my own," Clark said defensively, waving Lex towards the dining room. 

* * *

Roast beef was clearly beyond Clark. The meat had the consistency of leather, the gravy was almost solid, and the potatoes definitely didn't look anything like his mom's. 

Johnny had already given up on eating and was desultorily building a tower out of his potatoes, complete with a sluggish gravy moat. Julian and Lex, obviously schooled in the art of dealing politely with inedible food, were eating, albeit very slowly and taking very small bites. 

"I told you that you that you put the beef in too early," Johnny said with a sly grin, flicking a piece of carrot at Clark with the end of his knife. 

"If you don't like it you don't have to eat it," Clark said as he snatched the knife from Johnny. "That goes for all of you. I appreciate your efforts, really, but you don't have to struggle on my behalf." 

Julian pushed his plate away from himself with a happy-sounding sigh. Lex was a little more restrained; carefully placing his knife and fork on his plate and covering the whole mess with his napkin. 

"I suppose that I could rustle us up some sandwiches or something," Clark suggested. 

He'd been wrong. The food was more than capable of ruining the evening all on its own. He doubted that this sort of thing ever happened to Lex. It was mortifying. 

"Do you have any eggs?" Lex asked, getting up from the table and heading towards the kitchen. "I could make omelette." 

"Dad makes the best omelettes," Julian told Clark as they all trooped into the kitchen after Lex. 

Clark didn't think he'd ever seen Lex in a kitchen, never mind cooking. He pulled up a stool at the breakfast bar and settled in to watch, fascinated, as Lex Luthor rolled up his silk shirt sleeves and started rummaging through cupboards in the search for ingredients. 

"I didn't know you could cook," Clark said in wonderment. If anyone had ever asked him, he would have told them that Lex had never even made cereal for himself. 

"It's an essential life skill, Clark." Lex unearthed some elderly looking cheese from the back of the fridge with a small smile of triumph. "It's important to be self-sufficient. When Alexander -" 

Whatever Alexander had done, and its applicability to the making of omelettes, was obscured by the low groan Julian made as he collapsed onto the stool next to Clark. He rolled his eyes back so only the whites were showing, his tongue lolling out of his open mouth. 

"Oh dear," Lex said in perfectly even tones, eyes not leaving the cheese he was grating. "Did I just hear my son expire?" 

Julian grinned mischievously and winked at Clark. "Mr. Kent, did you know that the only reason that Alexander subdued the Persian armies was because he ate all of his beans? Or that Napoleon's Russian campaign only failed because he wouldn't tidy his room?" 

Clark couldn't help but return Julian's smile. "I didn't know that, Julian." 

"They never taught us that in history class," Johnny said in a slightly choked tone that suggested that he was desperately trying not to laugh. 

"It's all true, Johnny. Or so my father would have me believe." 

Lex grated the cheese with a great deal more force than Clark thought was truly necessary. 

Julian took on the air of a storyteller, his voice becoming lower so that Johnny and Clark had to lean in closer to hear him. "When I was a kid, I used to have this big chart full of the names of kings, emperors and philosophers, and after my dad gave me a lecture, I'd go back to my room and tick off all the ones that came up. Each name had a score on a sliding scale: Alexander got one point, obviously, and someone like Descartes got ten. I swear that I got up to fifty-eight points the time I drove the Aston Martin into the ornamental pond when I was twelve." 

"Jules, do you have to tell that story to everyone we meet?" Lex asked, placing a plate very deliberately in front of Julian and handing him a fork. His face was red and blotchy, but Clark got the impression that it was from the strain of trying not to laugh and the heat from the stove rather than anger. "Now, we're all going to eat our dinner quietly and there aren't going to be any more stories about me." 

* * *

There were plenty more stories about Lex as they ate, stories that didn't exactly paint him in the most flattering of lights. Clark could barely finish his second slice of pie because he was laughing so much. To his amazement, Lex took it all in good grace, even laughing along with the rest of them at some points. Clark hadn't even remembered how Lex looked when he laughed, it had been so long since he'd seen it and it had been a rare occurrence even when they were kids. He looked good, and Clark had to force himself not to stare. 

After the food was finished, Johnny dragged Julian out to the barn in unsubtle move to avoid helping with the cleaning up, leaving Clark alone in the kitchen with Lex. Lex was still grinning, looking loose and relaxed, and Clark felt the tension he had thought dissipated returning to him in spades. 

"Well, it appears that we've been abandoned to the dishes." Lex picked up a dish towel and moved towards the sink. "I'll dry." 

Clark grabbed at the towel. "No, you're a guest. Go and sit down and I'll sort everything out here." 

Lex looked as though he might argue for a moment, but he did finally relinquish the towel and left Clark with the dishes. 

Clark sighed, leaning against the counter and banging his head lightly against a cupboard door. This shouldn't be happening. Lex Luthor shouldn't be friendly conversations over dinner and laughing together. Lex Luthor was shady deals, shoot-outs with gangsters and experiments with kryptonite in underground labs. Clark couldn't allow himself to get complacent. 

Clark lingered over washing the dishes and then took almost twenty minutes making as close to the perfect cup of coffee as he could get with instant. He tried to ignore the fact that he still remembered the exact way that Lex took his coffee. Strong, with just a splash of milk and two sugars which were meant to be a secret. 

Lex was reading `Big Game Fishing' with every indication of interest when Clark finally plucked up the courage to take him his coffee. He smiled at Clark gratefully, putting the magazine to one side as he took the mug. 

Clark eschewed the couch for the uncomfortable armchair with the broken springs and scratchy upholstery that irritated even his invulnerable skin. 

"Johnny seems like a fine boy," Lex said after they had sat in silence for several very long, very awkward, minutes. "I always thought you'd make an excellent father, Clark, and it seems I was right." 

There were so many things that Clark could say to that: that he didn't think that Lex was right, that he wasn't that great at being a dad, and once upon a time he would have poured out all of these worries to Lex and Lex would have known just the right thing to say to make Clark feel better. Those days were long gone, however, and Clark didn't even miss them most of the time. 

"Julian's a great kid too." It really wasn't as difficult to admit as Clark had feared it would be. The words were surprisingly easy to say despite the weight of Lex's eyes upon him. "I think their friendship will be really good for Johnny." 

Lex's smile was radiant. "I'm glad that you think so, Clark. I know that neither of us would have chosen to put ourselves in this situation, but I think that we can work through this. It can only get easier." 

Clark wished he had Lex's optimism. It was only a matter of time before all their old grievances became too much for them to repress and Clark could only hope that the resulting explosion wouldn't destroy their children as well. 

* * *

Clark felt a little better about the prospect of accepting Lex's invitation to have lunch at the mansion on Sunday. Things between he and Lex were hardly comfortable and he couldn't foresee ever being able to drop his guard around the other man, but they had proved that they were capable of spending at least a few hours in each other's company and remaining civil. 

The fact that Johnny was smiling throughout the drive to the mansion also helped his newfound optimism. It wasn't as if he and Lex would have to spend any significant time together after this weekend. 

He was beginning to come around to the idea that Johnny would be spending time with Julian; he was even willing to allow the boy to come around to the house and visit Johnny - something he was sure that his mom would also appreciate. He would never entrust Johnny solely to Lex's care, but Johnny would just have to learn to accept that. 

Somehow, it felt even stranger for Clark to be approaching the mansion with little more than lunch on his mind than seeing Lex in the farmhouse had the day before. Nearly all of the good memories he had of the time he and Lex had spent together there had been superseded by the hurt and anger of the last, tenuous years of their friendship when the only times he had walked up that particular driveway were to confront Lex about some deceit, real or imagined, or to accuse him of some fresh misdeed. 

He felt quite sanguine about this meeting, however. The previous evening had passed without bloodshed, Lex was cooking this time, and having learnt from his prior embarrassment, he and Johnny had dressed up for the occasion. 

Johnny, who had worn a tie exactly twice before starting at Centennial Park, had protested about being forced into a shirt and tie, and kept tugging at his collar pointedly, but Clark was determined not to be shown up as a slob again. If the Luthors expected a certain degree of formality at mealtimes, then Clark was willing to adapt. 

When Julian answered the door to them, however, Clark was horrified to see that he was wearing jeans and a sweater. Admittedly the jeans had neat, razor-sharp creases down the legs and the sweater appeared to be cashmere, but the principle was the same. 

"Oh, thank God," Johnny said in obvious relief, tearing off his tie and thrusting it at Clark. 

Julian grinned and stood back, sweeping his arm around in an expansive welcoming gesture. 

"So glad you could come. My dad's in his office." 

"This place is amazing." Johnny said as he stepped through the door, looking around the hallway with a slightly slack-jawed expression that Clark recognised was probably very similar to the expression he had worn himself the first time that he'd visited the mansion. 

"I know. I have no idea why Dad never brought me here before," Julian said with a shrug that bespoke his own bemusement with the concept. "If you'd like to follow me, I'll take you to him." 

As they followed Julian, Clark was surprised that what little he could see of the mansion looked much the same as it had the day had first visited Lex to return the truck. Paintings were stacked haphazardly against the walls and the furniture in all the rooms they passed was covered in dustsheets. It didn't look like somewhere that had been abandoned. 

It seemed to be stuck in some sort of halfway place where Lex could just as easily be moving in as moving out. Clark had always been confused as to why Lex had left the mansion standing at all. With everything that had happened to Lex that last year in Smallville, he had expected the other man to flatten the house and salt the ground on which it had stood. That he not only left it unscathed, but still containing many of his possessions as if awaiting his return someday, seemed almost unbelievable. 

Perhaps there was just nothing there in the end that Lex cared enough about to take back with him to Metropolis. 

* * *

Lex's office itself was identical to how it had been over twenty years ago, as if Clark had stepped through some sort of time portal rather than a door to reach it. Lex was sitting behind his old desk, tapping away on his laptop, bathed in the fractured light of the stained glass window behind him. It was a scene directly out of any one of hundreds of memories that Clark had of Lex. 

The smile that Lex gave Clark when he looked up from his computer screen was also achingly familiar, too. It was a smile seemingly free of any ulterior motives, as though he was glad to see Clark there. 

"You're a little early," Lex said, still smiling as he glanced at his watch. "Lunch won't be ready for another forty, forty-five minutes or so. I'm sure we can think of something to do to pass the time, though." 

Lex looked directly at Clark as he said this last sentence, and the expression on his face was like something from their ancient history as well. Clark shuffled his feet and glanced around the room in an effort to distract himself from the naked hunger in Lex's eyes, which wasn't something that he could deal with, or had expected, at all. His nervous gaze rested on the hulking shape of the pool table, hidden beneath one of the ubiquitous dust sheets. 

"We could have a game of pool," Clark suggested, still feeling the heat of Lex's gaze on his exposed back. 

When he turned towards the other man, however, Lex was fiddling with his laptop and not looking in Clark's direction at all. Clark had never known how to deal with Lex's intensity as a teenager, and all the intervening years seemed to have done little to equip him with any of the necessary skills now. That he should ever look upon Clark with anything more than antipathy was shock enough, and Clark put the warmth he had momentarily thought he'd seen down to some trick of the light and a remnant of a childhood full of foolish wishes. 

"That sounds like a great idea, Clark," Lex said as he sauntered towards the pool table with some of his youthful swagger returned to the smooth glide of his hips. 

Clark kept his eyes resolutely averted and wondered what the hell had happened to Lex since the night before. Sure, they hadn't killed each other, but they'd hardly begun re-forging the lost bonds of friendship or whatever had made Lex seemingly revert to some semblance of his twenty-one-year-old self. Maybe spending a night in the mansion had done something odd to Lex's brain. 

"Jules, could you go and get a couple of pool cues for me?" Lex asked, pulling the dust sheet from the pool table with an unnecessarily dramatic flick of his wrist that sent the sheet billowing to the floor. "I think they're in one of the boxes in the library." 

"Okay, Dad." Julian beckoned to Johnny. "Do you want to come too? There's loads of really cool stuff lying around. There's even a full suit of armour in the downstairs bathroom." 

Johnny looked tempted by the prospect of seeing some of the more outr decoration choices of the ultra-rich and famous, but Clark stilled him with a hand on his arm and a hissed: "I'd rather you stayed with me, son." 

Johnny stepped away from Clark's hand and scowled darkly, but didn't try and follow Julian when he left. Clark could kid himself that he didn't want his son wandering around the Luthor house unprotected - because God only knew where Hope and Mercy had been hiding themselves - but really he didn't want to be left alone with Lex and his newly rediscovered knowing smirks and slinky walk. Clark knew it was a little pathetic to be using his fifteen-year-old son as a human shield to protect himself against any attempted friendly overtures by Lex, but he didn't really care. 

"This is a wonderful house, Mr. Luthor," Johnny said, unexpectedly coming to Clark's rescue so he didn't have to try and strike up a conversation with Lex. "It's a shame no one uses it most of the time." 

Lex grinned as he set up the balls on the pool table. "I think I'm going to make a point of visiting Smallville more regularly from now on. I'm beginning to remember some of its particular charms." 

The look Lex had on his face following that statement was probably illegal in most states. Clark had to wonder if Lex had his own form of red kryptonite because there really wasn't any other sort of explanation for his behaviour. And if Clark was reacting to it against his will? Well, he had the excuse of not having had regular sex for over ten years, but he very much doubted that the same held true for Lex. Clearly being in Smallville was having some sort of regressive effect on both of them. 

"Do you know how to play pool, Johnny?" Lex asked, tearing his eyes away from Clark to look at Johnny in an altogether more normal manner. 

"My mom taught me, but I'm not very good," Johnny said with one of his usual shrugs. 

"Well, you're lucky that your dad's a damn fine player then, otherwise I'm sure Jules and I would have wiped the floor with you," Lex said with a brief smile that lessened any offence Johnny could have taken at his words. 

"You're good at pool?" Johnny asked in an almost reverential tone that he had never used when Clark had told him about being Superman. Clearly Clark should have ditched the costume and bought a pool table years ago. Who knew? 

"The benefits of a misspent youth." Clark found himself grinning at Lex for no reason he could ascertain. Lex arched his eyebrows at Clark, his lips thin and pointed. 

Clark was almost certain that there was some sort of mind-altering chemical agent floating around the mansion. What he was doing could almost be construed as flirting. With Lex Luthor. It was possibly a sign of the coming apocalypse. Soon lions would lie down with lambs and Batman would be taking the Joker out for dinner and a movie. 

"You've got some really interesting pieces here," Johnny said, carrying on his weird fit of loquaciousness as he wandered over to the art on display on the shelves by Lex's desk. "It's a shame that it's all just gathering dust." 

Clark wouldn't have thought that Johnny would know an `interesting piece' of art if it bit him on the ass, but he was soon studying the small collection of pottery and sculpture with apparent interest. 

When Johnny picked up a jar that looked as if it may have been old enough to have survived the Ice Age, however, Clark felt he should intervene. He took a step forward to take the jar off his son but Lex stopped him from moving with a firm hand on Clark's shoulder. "Let him, Clark. There's nothing here that I care enough about to worry if he breaks it." 

Lex's hand did not leave Clark's shoulder as he manoeuvred around the end of the pool table, coming to stand so closely beside Clark that their bodies were almost touching. They stood that way for a second, Clark stupidly thinking that he should move or hit Lex or something other than stand there and let Lex touch him, before Lex relaxed his grip and let his fingers trail down Clark's arm as his hand fell back to his side. 

Clark's heart speeded up and he gulped in air hurriedly to try and calm himself. It availed him nothing as it only served to fill his nostrils with the scent of Lex's cologne which, despite all logic, was the exact same fragrance he remembered that the other man used to wear when they were younger. The smell touched some part of Clark's long-repressed teenage libido and he shuffled uncomfortably away from Lex. 

"I thought that Julian was away at boarding school in England. What made you change your mind and send him to Centennial Park?" It wasn't exactly what Clark had been meaning to say, but it was better than nothing. Better than just standing there and trying not to look at Lex. 

"I'd always wanted to send him to Eton," Lex said quietly, "but we only managed a year. I missed him too much and wanted him to come home. He was glad to do so." 

"He didn't settle in?" 

"I know you might find this hard to believe," Lex's tone was self-deprecating, "but he missed me too. Jules was happy enough there; he has the enviable talent of making friends easily wherever he goes. Something which, I'm sure you'll agree, he didn't inherit from me." 

It was on the tip of Clark's tongue to ask whether it was something that Julian had inherited from his mother, that mysterious figure who had kept America guessing for the last fourteen years. He was interrupted by Julian bursting back into the office before he had chance to ask the question. 

Clark could feel the kryptonite before he even saw that the boy was carrying anything. There was the familiar lassitude in his muscles, the faint wave of nausea, and the throbbing in his temples that he knew immediately for the effects of the meteor rock. Thankfully, he'd had enough years to acclimatise himself to the rock's effects, and it was far enough away, that he was able to disguise his discomfort sufficiently that even Lex would be fooled into thinking that he was fine. 

"I couldn't find the pool cues, but I did find a big metal box full of rocks," Julian said cheerfully, holding the sickly-green lump of kryptonite aloft. "I never knew you used to be a geology geek, Dad." 

The sound of pottery smashing against the polished wood floor was the first thing that alerted Clark that his son was in trouble, and he turned towards Johnny just in time to see the boy's legs buckle. It seemed to Clark as if he had unwittingly slipped into super-speed as his son's body fell to the floor as if in slow motion, head striking the bookshelf behind him with a dull, sickening thud. 

It the most terrifying thing that Clark had ever seen: more terrifying than the first time he'd battled Doomsday, or when the hospital thought they'd found a shadow on his mom's lung, and even more terrifying than the day that he'd faced a Porsche barrelling towards him at sixty miles an hour when he still thought he was normal enough to be killed by it. 

Julian's face blanched of all colour and he rushed to Johnny's side, his free hand reaching out for his friend. As he drew nearer, Johnny's back arced clear of the floor and he let out a low groan of pain. 

Clark tried to move towards the boys, tried to call out to Julian to take the fucking rock away from his son, but his muscles failed to respond to his mind's request, the air turning dense and heavy around him so each movement felt like trying to swim through molten lead. The only sound that managed to escape his lips was a pitiful-sounding whine. 

The kryptonite pulsed in Julian's hand, glinting like a baleful eye. 

"Jules, that thing's dangerous." Lex's voice was calm and completely unexpected. "Take it back where you found it and put it away." 

Julian stared at his father for a moment, his pale face twisted with obvious horror. Then his expression calmed suddenly and he nodded. "Okay, Dad." 

As soon as the boy left the room, Clark was able to move again and he was at Johnny's side before he could even think to care whether or not he'd just used his super-speed in front of Lex. 

Johnny's skin was ashen and clammy, his eyes moving restlessly behind his closed eyelids. When Clark tentatively touched a hand to his son's forehead, the skin was so hot that even he could feel it. 

He sat back on his haunches, one of Johnny's limp hands clutched between his own. He didn't know how other parents coped with this. Through some quirk of Kryptonian genetics, or sheer good luck, Johnny had very rarely been even slightly ill as a child. There had been a couple of head colds when he was a toddler, but nothing else for years, not even a skinned knee. Despite all his superpowers, he could do nothing to help Johnny; he didn't even know how to help himself when he'd been exposed to kryptonite. He wasn't used to feeling this helpless. 

"I'm sorry." Lex's hand on Clark's back was even gentler than his voice. "I didn't know that -" 

Clark angrily shrugged the hand away. He hadn't known that kryptonite could do this to Johnny, either. It must be some sort of sick cosmic joke that his son would have his weaknesses but none of his strengths. But then he never would have known if he hadn't let his guard down and been stupid enough to trust Lex even for a second, because there was no way Johnny would ever have come into contact with kryptonite otherwise. Clark was careful enough never to have taken that risk. 

He'd been insane to even begin to believe that this could work. Living on the same planet as a Luthor was still almost too close when it came to safety for him and his son. 

"Leave me alone, Luthor," Clark said, pulling Johnny into his arms as he stood up. "Leave us both alone. I don't want you anywhere near my son ever again. Either of you." 

* * *

Clark ran all the way back to Metropolis with his arms tightly wrapped around Johnny and his heart threatening to burst free of his chest. His mom seemed shocked to see them appear unannounced back at the house, but one look at Johnny's limp body chased away any questions she might have had, and she hurried off to make things comfortable for the boy in his bedroom. 

Johnny was unconscious for the rest of Sunday afternoon. By Sunday evening he was waking for short periods of time, but even then he wasn't lucid enough for Clark to be able to speak to him. 

Clark sat by Johnny's bed all that night, holding onto one of his hands so tightly that he was surprised that it didn't hurt the boy. If it did, he gave no sign of it, and slept so deeply that even the sound of Clark's communicator, trilling loudly to alert him to some emergency or other, didn't make him stir. For once, Clark ignored the device's insistent ringing. If the emergency was grave enough that the League couldn't deal with it without him, then one of them would just have to come and fetch him themselves. 

No one came, and Clark measured the passage of the night by the rhythm of Johnny's shallow breaths. 

On Monday morning, Johnny awoke with a start, sitting up and looking around wildly, clearly surprised to find himself in his own bedroom. 

"How are you feeling, son?" Clark asked, squeezing Johnny's hand gently. 

Johnny stared at Clark for a moment as though he didn't recognise him. Then his expression cleared, and he pulled his hand away from Clark's sharply. 

"Why are we back in Metropolis?" Johnny glared at Clark, looking suspicious. "What happened?" 

"There was an accident while we were over at the Luthor mansion." Clark stretched his hand out for Johnny's again but Johnny shuffled over to the far side of the bed, out of reach. "Julian got hold of some kryptonite and it made you very ill." 

Johnny's brow furrowed. "Jules had some kryptonite? Where did he get it from?" 

"Luthor just happened to have some lying around. I told you that you wouldn't be safe around them." 

"Why would Jules think that kryptonite would hurt me?" Johnny's expression was incredulous. "Why would he even want to hurt me?" 

"I don't know." Clark shook his head sadly. "I never would have thought that Lex would want to hurt me either, but -" 

"Leave me alone, Dad." Johnny's voice was little more than a raspy whisper, but his anger was plain. "I don't care what problems you and Lex Luthor might have had when you were younger. Jules is my best friend and I trust him. Stop trying to force your issues on to me." 

Johnny turned his back on Clark and pulled his quilt up over his head, making it very clear that their conversation was over. Clark stood over Johnny for a while, wanting to just hold him and reassure himself that the boy really was as recovered as he looked. He resisted the urge, knowing Johnny wouldn't welcome it. He knew he should be happy that Johnny was safe and there had apparently been no harm done. Maybe a better man than he could have dismissed the whole incident as a freak accident and moved on. 

However, Clark thought would never stop replaying the horrific vision of his son collapsing and the visceral terror he felt at the sight. 

Luthor was going to pay for what he did to Johnny. 

* * *

Belatedly, Clark remembered to ring Lois and tell her what had happened to their son. She was over at the house in minutes, abandoning the newsroom partway through the day for the first time that Clark could remember. 

She sat on the bed next to Johnny and hugged him close, stroking his tangled hair. To Clark's surprise, Johnny allowed the hug, resting his cheek on Lois' shoulder as she murmured soft nothings to him. 

Clark stood in the bedroom doorway and watched them, feeling envious of their closeness and hating himself for feeling that way. 

"Sometimes a boy just needs his mother," Martha said, coming to stand next to Clark with a steaming bowl of chicken soup in her hands. "Don't feel bad about it. Johnny's not rejecting you." 

Clark wanted to hug her, but the soup precluded any closeness. He settled for squeezing her shoulder gently. "I know, Mom. I just feel so useless. Johnny's going to keep getting himself hurt if he insists on staying friends with the Luthor boy. If he doesn't see how dangerous this is after what happened yesterday, I really don't know what I can do to change his mind." 

His mom had no answers, but Clark wasn't surprised. He didn't think there were any answers but to stand by and let Johnny get hurt again and again until he reached the right conclusion on his own. It had taken him five painful years to finally realise what Lex was truly capable of and he wanted more than anything to be able to spare Johnny that. 

"I don't know about the Luthors," Martha offered Clark a tired smile, "but I trust you and I trust Johnny. Things will work themselves out eventually, Clark, and if they work out badly for Johnny, then I know you'll be there to help him put them right. We all will." 

His mom's advice was scarily similar to the advice Lex had given him in the Talon. He shook his head at this fresh evidence of a world gone mad, and then went out into the yard in the hope that the fresh air would help clear his head. 

* * *

Lois came out to join Clark a little while later, sitting next to him on the little bench by the back door that was one of the few things that Martha had brought with her from Smallville when she moved in with Clark. 

"He's gone back to sleep," Lois said after they'd sat together in silence for a moment. "He's completely beat, poor little guy." 

Clark grinned. "That `little guy' is a good three inches taller than you now." 

"I know, but... Fuck, I've never seen him look so vulnerable." Lois turned her head towards Clark, and Clark noticed for the first time that her eyes were puffy and her mascara had run. "Not even when he was a baby. Do you remember how loudly he used to cry? I used to think he'd shatter the windows." 

Lois' shoulders started shaking, and Clark put a tentative arm around them. She curled against his chest and trembled, although she didn't cry. Clark wasn't sure he could have coped if Lois started crying. It was strange enough to have her so close to him again, but he'd never once seen her cry. If she'd done so when they'd split up, she'd never let him see it, and he thought that it might just send him over the edge. His own tears, and rage, were pressing hotly against the back of his eyes and he didn't dare contemplate what might happen if he let them both run free. 

Tearing Lex Luthor limb from limb sounded like a good start. 

"What happened, exactly?" Lois asked, her voice muffled by the fabric of Clark's shirt. 

Clark told her everything, from meeting up with Lex in the Talon to Julian walking into Lex's office with a piece of kryptonite in his hands. He may have glossed over some minor, inconsequential details such as how badly he ruined dinner the first night and how he might just have been flirting with Lex, but they added nothing of any real importance to Lois' understanding of the events of the weekend. 

"So you're blaming this on the kid then?" Lois asked after Clark finished speaking. "There's no way he could have known what kryptonite might do to Johnny even if he did know what it was." 

"Johnny's already told me that and I understand, I really do. But the fact remains that Lex had kryptonite right there, in his house. Everyone keeps telling me that he's changed but there's no good reason why he'd still have stores of the stuff. That rock hurts other people too, Lois, not just me and Johnny." 

Lois pushed against Clark's chest, levering herself upright so that she could look straight into his eyes. "Clark, you told me yourself that Lex hadn't used the mansion in years. He'd probably forgotten that the kryptonite was even there." 

Clark snorted. "This is Lex Luthor we're talking about. I don't believe for a second that he doesn't have the locations of every last speck of kryptonite recorded somewhere. He's always been obsessed with it. Now that he's seen what it can do to Johnny, there's no way that I can let Johnny go anywhere near him." 

Lois broke free of Clark's encircling arm with a violent twist of her body and stood up from the bench. "So you honestly think that Luthor would try and hurt a fifteen-year-old boy? Why the hell would he want to do that?" 

"I don't know, but I think he'd do it if he felt he had to, regardless. I know what he's like, Lois, better than anyone else." 

Lois put her hands on her hips and glared at Clark, her face flushed. "You knew what he was like, what, twenty years ago? I'll admit the man's hardly likely to be the next Mother Theresa or anything, but he's a different person to the one you used to know. You have to stop living in the past, Clark." 

Lois smoothed her ruffled hair back into its usual place and her expression softened slightly. "I know that it was probably terrifying for you to see that happen to Johnny, I know my heart hasn't stopped racing yet and I wasn't even there, but it was nobody's fault as far as I can see. Let it go." She leant forward and pressed a kiss to Clark's forehead. "I'll be back over tonight to see how Johnny's doing. Take care, Clark." 

* * *

The kryptonite seemed to have no lasting ill-effects on Johnny and by the Wednesday of that week, Clark decided that any unwillingness that Johnny had to get out of bed was just malingering and sent him back to school. 

Johnny had barely spoken to Clark besides demanding that he find him the remote or bring him more juice for the full three days, but Clark just regarded that as a return to the status quo. He had expected that Johnny would badger him about seeing Julian, and had steeled himself to refuse, but no request was forthcoming. Neither was the phone call that Clark had expected either Julian or Lex to make, offering hollow apologies for what had happened at the mansion. 

Clearly, Julian didn't much care what had happened to his so-called friend and, perversely, Clark was pleased by that. Perhaps now Johnny would realise just what sort of people the Luthors were. 

Still, he was nervous about Johnny's first day back at school, where he would no doubt run into Julian at some point. His fears were apparently unfounded, as Johnny made no mention of Julian that night, or any other night for the rest of the week. Johnny even allowed Clark to drive him to and from school with no resistance offered. Thinking that the worst was over, Clark allowed himself to relax a little. 

Then, on the Saturday afternoon of that week he got a phone call that proved that he should never underestimate the persistence of Lex Luthor. 

* * *

The first thing that Clark noticed as he flew towards Smallville was the small but steady stream of trucks bearing the LexCorp logo trundling out of the town towards Metropolis. A quick scan with his x-ray vision proved useless as they were, like much of what Lex owned, lined with lead. 

Smallville itself was deserted save for a veritable army of men and women wearing bright yellow hazard suits working painstakingly over every inch of the town and surrounding fields with ground penetrating radar machines. 

Clark hovered above the town for a while, watching with growing horror as workers dug ditches and loaded box after box with rocks. Rocks that made him feel slightly nauseous even from several hundred feet away. 

Clark had seen all he needed to see. It obviously hadn't taken Luthor long to make plans based on the new information he had. Whatever Lois, and countless others, had said, he couldn't think of anything good that Lex could be doing with that amount of kryptonite. 

Clark swooped around and followed the trucks out of town, thanking God that Mr. Stevenson, their old neighbour, still felt it his duty keep him and his mom informed about every single thing that went on in Smallville. 

* * *

The trucks led Clark to a huge warehouse just outside the Metropolis city limits whose walls, unsurprisingly, turned out to be as impervious to his x-ray vision as the trucks were. There were guards in smart LexCorp uniforms flanking the doors and loading bay, all armed with guns that Clark knew from experience were loaded with kryptonite-tipped bullets. 

Clark flew around the perimeter of the warehouse looking for some sort of entry point. Lex had been as depressingly thorough as he ever was, however, and the whole building was locked down as tightly as any could be from an assault by Superman. 

Clark was considering risking the kryptonite and the guards, and making an attempt to fly inside the next time the doors opened to admit a truck, when he noticed Luthor stepping out of a side door, Hope and Mercy following a couple of steps behind him. 

Clark had snatched Luthor off the ground before Hope and Mercy had time to react. He flew high into the air with him, way beyond the reach of the guards' bullets and Luthor's furious bodyguards. 

Clark's grip around Luthor's waist was perhaps a little too tight, although it was taking all of his willpower not to squeeze harder and break the man in half. That, or drop him. Luthor battered ineffectually at Clark's arms for a moment with clenched fists before seemingly resigning himself to his fate and going limp and placid in Clark's arms. 

"What are you doing with the kryptonite, Luthor?" Clark growled, his mouth almost touching Luthor's ear. 

Clark could feel Luthor's shoulders moving as if he were trying to shrug. "I'm not talking to you up here. Set me down somewhere and we can discuss it, if you like." 

"Not a chance, Luthor." Clark allowed his grip to tighten fractionally. 

Luthor tried to sigh but made a sort of choking sound instead. "My guards are under orders not to shoot at you and, although you've no doubt pissed Hope and Mercy off, they'll leave you alone. I don't want a fight, Superman." 

Clark weighed up his options. He didn't trust Luthor enough to take him at his word, but he also knew that the other man was stubborn enough to hold to his threat of not speaking until Clark acquiesced to his demand. 

Clark was desperate enough to find out what Luthor was planning to meet him halfway. 

He landed on the roof of the warehouse and let Luthor go. Luthor staggered back a few steps, breathing heavily, but he didn't run. Nor did he call for Hope and Mercy. He straightened his suit jacket and then, with one eyebrow raised slightly, looked directly at Clark as if waiting for him to ask the question again. 

"What are you doing with the kryptonite, Luthor?" Clark asked, hating the smug grin that Luthor gave him in response. 

"I don't really see why I should have to explain myself to you, but since you asked so politely, I'll indulge you. I'm having it destroyed." 

Clark let out an involuntary snort of laughter. "Destroyed?" 

"Yes, destroyed." Luthor repeated, looking annoyed. "Or more accurately, I'm having it smelted down, sealed in lead boxes and buried deep underground. I've never managed to come up with an efficient way to neutralise kryptonite effectively." 

Clark could only stare at Luthor in blank astonishment for a time. He couldn't imagine there was any reason that he would want to rid the world of kryptonite. He had never thought that the other man particularly cared what the rocks might be doing to the people living in Smallville and it seemed unbelievable that he would destroy his only credible weapon against Superman. 

"Why?" he asked finally. 

"I think you can guess why, Superman," Luthor said, turning away and presenting Clark with the stiff line of his back. "Don't make me say it." 

There was only one possible explanation, but it seemed so far beyond the bounds of everything that Clark knew, or thought he knew, about Luthor for him to even begin to comprehend what it might mean. 

God, how long had he known? It must have been the incident at the mansion that made it possible for him to make the connection between Clark and Superman. Clark found it impossible to believe that Luthor could have known about his secret identity for any longer than that and not used the information against him in some way. 

"Thank you," Clark said gruffly, taking a step towards Luthor. 

It didn't much matter to him exactly what Luthor's motives were as long as his son was safe. He honestly would never have suspected that Luthor would care what might or might not happen to Johnny. 

"Don't move," Luthor said, raising his hand as if in warning, "and don't make the mistake of thinking this has anything to do with you. I still have reserves of kryptonite, Superman. I'm not foolish enough to leave myself or my city entirely unprotected, but I give you my word that they're kept under tight security and the chance of even the tiniest piece finding its way out of my protection is less than minimal. 

"Given the circumstances, I think you'll agree that I've been patient, but if you haven't vacated the premises in the next five minutes, I'll have no compunction in sending Hope and Mercy up here to make sure you leave." 

With that Luthor thrust his hands deep in his jacket pockets and walked towards the stairway at the far end of the roof. Clark watched him go with the uneasy feeling that there was something that he needed to say, but he couldn't quite find the right words to do so. 

* * *

Clark sank down on to the couch with a sigh of pure contentment. His life was beginning to get back into its old, comfortable routine. In the two weeks since the incident in Smallville, Johnny hadn't mentioned Julian once and Lex had been keeping an unnaturally low profile - Clark hadn't run across the other man once during his nightly patrols. Both of these facts combined allowed Clark to pretty much forget that the Luthors even existed, which was the way he'd always liked it. 

To make his life even more perfect, Johnny was at Lois's for the weekend and his mom had gone to spend the week with friends in Granville, leaving Clark on his own in the house for two full days, which was an almost unprecedented event. Clark felt slightly guilty for being glad that they weren't around, but, on the other hand, he felt that after the stresses of the past month, he deserved a little downtime. 

His plan for Saturday evening was a simple one. He had a stack of cheesy eighties horror movies to watch, a pizza on order, the phone was off the hook and he'd hidden the Fortress communicator at the very bottom of his underwear drawer. He'd still be able to hear it ring if he'd left it at the other side of the country, but it still made him more relaxed knowing that it wasn't easily on hand. 

Clark stretched himself full length on the couch, propping his head up on a pile of soft cushions, and started the first movie. 

The sound of a door slamming closed startled Clark to full wakefulness. He opened his eyes a slit and looked around the living room cautiously. Nothing seemed amiss, though by Clark's reckoning he'd been asleep for about three hours: it was full dark outside the windows and the Blu-Ray player had switched itself onto standby. 

Clark strained his super-hearing, listening for anything out of place. As he concentrated, a horribly familiar sound resolved itself from the normal susurrus of a house at rest. Three human heartbeats. Two calm and steady and the third beating a rapid staccato rhythm that made Clark's own heart speed up to match it. 

Clark pushed himself up on his elbows, slowly dropping his legs off the couch to rest his feet on the floor. 

"Don't move." Lex's voice was low and threatening and, somehow, Clark wasn't surprised to hear it. 

Lex's clenched fist pressed firmly against the back of Clark's skull and the wave of nausea that assailed him was enough to make him retch. He lurched forward, a reflex action as his body strained to escape the insidious poison of the stone in Lex's ring. Hope and Mercy moved in, as swift and silent as striking snakes, pressing his flailing arms down hard onto the couch cushions. 

"Where's my son, Clark?" Lex hissed, tangling his fingers in Clark's hair and yanking his head back until their eyes met over the back of the couch. 

Lex's eyes were almost feverish, burning brightly against the skull-white skin of his bloodless face. 

"I don't know," Clark managed to choke out, his tightening throat fighting the egress of every word. 

"Don't lie to me." Lex's mouth twisted into an ugly grimace. "He was here and now he's not, and I don't believe that you don't know anything about that. This is your last chance, Clark. Where is my son?" 

The pain was excruciating. Lex's face flashed in and out of darkness in front of Clark's eyes and he could feel his consciousness slipping. 

"He was never here, Lex." Clark held Lex's eyes as levelly as he could. "Never here." 

Lex stared down at him unblinkingly for several, eternal, seconds. Then his hand dropped from Clark's head and he took two shaky steps away from the couch, pulling the kryptonite ring from his finger and pushing it deep into the pocket of his pants. Suddenly, the worst of the pain vanished and Clark could move freely. He could only think, slightly hysterically, that Lex's pants must be lined with lead. 

"Let him go," Lex said, waving his hand distractedly at Hope and Mercy. 

Hope and Mercy wore identical expressions of petulant disappointment, but they obeyed Lex instantly. Hope did manage to twist Clark's wrist painfully before she moved away, taking full advantage of his weakened state. 

"What's happened to Julian?" Clark asked as soon stopped feeling as though he was going to throw up his intestines the moment he opened his mouth. 

"He was meant to phone me at six o'clock to let me know he was okay." Clark could hear Lex start to pace behind him, his footfalls brisk and uneven. "He didn't call, and when I tried his cell phone I kept getting straight through to voicemail. I rang you about ten times and couldn't get through. I only came here as a last resort. I thought you might have gone to a movie or something, and Jules had just forgotten about calling. He's very forgetful sometimes. 

"When it got to nine and I still couldn't get hold of him, I had to come and check that everything was all right. You understand that don't you, Clark? When I saw that he wasn't here either, I fear I rather lost my temper, as you can see." 

"So you just walked straight into my house." Clark lifted his head to glare at Lex, trying to ignore the way that the room seemed to spin around him as he moved. "What the hell gives you the right?" 

"I'm sorry, Clark," Lex said, not sounding in the least bit apologetic. "I was worried about my son. With good reason it appears." 

"Look, I'm really sorry about Julian. I understand how worried you must be, but that still doesn't give you the right to -" 

"Where's Johnny tonight?" Lex asked, ignoring Clark completely. 

Clark was almost tempted not to answer as Lex clearly didn't have any respect for Clark or his home, but he could understand the fear and desperation that Lex must be feeling. If something like this had happened to Johnny, Clark would be tearing the city apart trying to find him. 

"Lois has got him for the weekend." 

"Are you sure?" 

"Of course I am," Clark said, rolling his eyes in frustration. 

Despite the firmness of his words, however, there was a splinter of doubt in his mind. Two years ago he would have been certain, even six months ago he wouldn't have questioned it, but that was before Johnny had started lying to him. Started sneaking around behind Clark's back and disobeying him. 

He grabbed the phone from the coffee table by the couch and dialled Lois' number. 

"Hey, Lois," Clark said as soon as the call connected, "can I speak to Johnny?" 

"I'm good, Clark. Thanks for asking," Lois said brightly. "It's so nice to hear from you." 

"Lois, I really don't have time for this." Clark was preternaturally aware of Lex's presence behind him as the other man stopped his pacing and leant over the back of the couch. "Can I speak to Johnny, please?" 

"Clark, Johnny's not here." Clark could hear the anxiety creeping into Lois' voice and his blood ran cold. "He told me that you wanted him to spend the weekend there with you. He said there was something really important that he needed to do." 

Clark's hand clenched involuntarily and the phone receiver shattered before he had chance to reply. He tried to stand up, but his legs, still weak from the kryptonite, buckled beneath him. Lex grabbed Clark's elbow, steadying him before he could fall. 

"He's not there," Clark said, hand clutching at the front of Lex's shirt. "Where the fuck is he, Lex?" 

Lex's hand dropped to Clark's waist and he pulled him closer for an instant, almost as though he wanted to embrace him. But it was only the briefest of instants, and Lex moved away so quickly afterwards that Clark almost felt he had imagined it. 

"I don't know but I'm beginning to suspect that wherever they are, they're probably there together." Lex motioned brusquely towards Hope and Mercy. "Hope, I want you to mobilise the alpha security team and sweep the city. Mercy, liaise with the police, give them any information and assistance they ask for." 

The two women nodded, moving even before Lex had finished giving his orders. They'd been dangerous adversaries for years but Clark found that he was grateful for their ruthless efficiency now. He doubted there was anywhere in Metropolis that anyone could hide from Lex and his people if they wanted to find them. 

Clark sank back down onto the couch, terror warring with anger as his predominant emotion. Anger was winning. He never would have thought that Johnny could do something like this to him, but he realised that he had been wilfully blind. He'd been so preoccupied with trying to protect Johnny from the Luthors that he'd let the boy's behaviour deteriorate into outright rebellion without checking it. He might as well have given Johnny his blessing to do something like this. 

"They've probably not gone far," Lex said, the trembling of his hands as they fumbled in his jacket pocket belying the matter-of-fact tone of his voice. "We could be worrying about nothing." 

Clark was nodding his agreement even as the doubt resurfaced in his mind and fear began overtaking his anger. "Shit, Lex. There were gangsters after Lois a couple of months ago, that's why we had to move Johnny to Centennial Park. I'd almost forgotten about them because we've not heard anything from them since the first threat they made. What if they were just biding their time? Do you think they might have anything to do with this?" 

Lex froze, cell phone raised halfway to his mouth. "I don't think that you need to worry about them, Clark." 

"Why? What do you know about them, Lex?" If Lex was messed up in this somehow, Clark would make sure that he never saw anything but the inside of a jail cell for the rest of his life. 

"They're a little too dead to be doing much of anything." Lex seemed to be totally absorbed with the display of his cell phone. "I'm sure that you remember meeting them briefly. I never thanked you for saving me that day; my physician told me I was minutes away from death myself." 

"You were working with them?" The only thing that was keeping Clark from breaking Lex's neck in that moment was the hope that Lex might be able to help him find Johnny. Breaking Lex's neck could wait until his son was safely returned home. 

"No." Lex seemed offended that Clark could even suggest such a thing. "I never intended for them to be killed either, Clark, before you ask. The intention of our meeting was to agree the terms of their leaving Metropolis. You'll recall that I had a briefcase with me. That briefcase contained enough money to make each and every one of them a very rich man." 

"What went wrong?" 

"They didn't think I was offering to make them quite rich enough. They believed that if they made my situation more desperate then I would be a little more generous. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to realise how angry shooting me would make Hope and Mercy. They didn't stand a chance, I'm afraid, especially as I wasn't able to give any orders for them to show restraint." 

"And why should I believe that?" Clark asked. 

He really wanted to believe Lex, but it didn't seem to make any sense to him. He'd never really considered Lex as the sort of person who wanted to make the world a safer place or had any particular sense of civic duty. 

"I know I've never given you much reason to trust me, Clark." Lex smiled crookedly. "But if you believe nothing else about me, believe this: I want this city to be a safe place for my son to grow up in, something which I'm sure you understand. I know how my actions appear to you, but I like to believe that we're working towards the same aim although our methods may be different. Maybe someday I can prove that to you, but that's hardly important now. 

"The only important thing is that you that you trust me to do everything in my power to make sure we find our sons and bring them home safely." 

"Okay." Clark nodded. He could believe that Lex was telling the truth in this, if nothing else. "You seem to have the ground covered. I'll see what I can find out from the air." 

* * *

Lex was shouting down his cell phone at some unfortunate minion when Clark staggered through the French doors into the penthouse. Lex looked up at him briefly and frowned. He didn't ask whether Clark had found anything which confirmed Clark's suspicions that his failure was writ large across his face. 

Clark felt weak and exhausted in a way that he hadn't felt for years, even after fighting running battles that spanned galaxies. He'd circled Metropolis until dawn began to lighten the sky, eyes fixed on x-ray as he scanned every structure in the city that could conceivably have concealed two teenage boys. His eyes were throbbing, barely able to focus in normal vision. 

Clark leaned against a wall, watching Lex as he finished up his phone call. The skin beneath Lex's eyes looked bruised and he was still wearing the same clothes as he had been the night before. His shirt was crumpled in a way that Clark thought would probably horrify the other man on any other day. He looked fragile, and yet strangely much more human than he usually did. 

"My men haven't found anything either," Lex said as he snapped the cell phone closed. "Not a single trace." 

"I've informed the Justice League to be on the look out for the boys," Clark said wearily. "I don't know what else we can do, Lex." 

"We keep looking, Clark, it's all we can do." Lex sagged against the wall opposite Clark. "They haven't got a car and no one answering their descriptions has bought a bus or plane ticket. As far as my team can ascertain, they haven't left Metropolis. It's just a matter of time before we find them." 

Clark nodded dully, his eyelids fluttering closed. They had perhaps a few more hours of grace before the boys' disappearance hit the press. Lex's influence had suppressed the story thus far, but it wouldn't last. Clark knew that, somehow, this would all become more real once he saw it on the front page of the Daily Planet or reported on the evening news. Right now he could kid himself that Julian was going to call his father at any moment or Johnny would be safely tucked up in his bed if Clark were to go home. 

"You look exhausted, Clark," Lex said, his voice sounding faint and distorted as though he were speaking from the bottom of a deep well. "You should try and get some sleep." 

"I can't." Clark's body screamed its own disavowal of his words, but Clark ignored it. "I should get back out there. You're right; I've got to keep looking." 

Lex's hand was on Clark's shoulder before Clark even heard him moving. "It looks as though you can barely stand, never mind fly. You can sleep here if you like, then, if I hear anything, anything at all, I can come right through and get you." 

Clark leaned into the warmth of the contact slightly despite himself. "You'll wake me the second you hear anything?" 

Lex chuckled, gently steering Clark away from the wall. "Of course I will." 

Clark stumbled through the penthouse, trusting Lex's firm hand flat on the small of his back to guide him to a bed and not let him smash through too many priceless antiques on the way. A small voice at the back of his mind tried to remind him that it really wasn't that safe to be sleeping in the lion's den, as it were, but Clark ignored it. He felt as if he could quite happily curl up and go to sleep in the centre of a nuclear blast. 

Lex's hand left Clark's back momentarily as he opened a door, but it soon returned, pushing Clark until his knees hit something solid that Clark presumed had to be a bed. Clark sank down gratefully, ready to collapse fully-clothed and let sleep claim him. 

He heard Lex sigh, and then his nimble fingers were working at the clasps of Clark's cape. Clark opened his protesting eyes in shock to find Lex's face far too close to his own for comfort. 

"I never imagined the day would come that I'd be undressing Superman," Lex said, obviously trying for levity and failing utterly. Clark could see a faint blush spreading across the other man's cheekbones and he seemed unwilling to meet Clark's eyes. 

Lex pulled the cape from Clark's shoulders and threw it to the floor carelessly. He then moved hurriedly to kneel at the foot of the bed and started tugging at Clark's boots. Clark lifted his feet lazily and let his body fall into a haphazard sprawl across the bed. The mattress moulded itself to his body as perfectly as a lover's hands. 

"You should get some sleep too," Clark said, reaching out languidly to grab a pillow. "You look as tired as I feel." 

"I'm fine, Clark." Lex patted Clark's ankle once, and Clark could hear him shifting his weight and then standing up. "I had a nap earlier. One of us should be awake to monitor the situation anyway." 

Clark wanted to agree, but found that he couldn't summon up the energy to talk. 

* * *

Clark didn't know what awoke him, but when he cracked open his eyes, Lex was leaning over the bed, his face ghostly in the anaemic light bleeding in through the partly open door behind him. 

Clark sat up hurriedly, fighting with the quilt that he couldn't remember pulling over himself before he fell asleep. "Has something happened?" he asked, stomach tightening with anticipation and no little fear. 

"No," Lex shook his head briskly, "but you've been asleep for five hours and I thought that perhaps you wouldn't be too happy with me if I let you sleep for the rest of the day. Although I think you could probably do with it." 

Lex sat down on the very edge of the bed, his shoulders stooping like a man bracing himself for a heavy blow. He'd changed his shirt at some point while Clark had been sleeping, but he still looked dishevelled somehow. Clark couldn't help but suspect that Lex had been lying about having slept earlier. 

There was a cup of coffee on the bedside table and Clark picked it up gratefully. He gingerly took a sip, belatedly remembering to be mindful of the fact that this was Lex Luthor and it could well be laced with kryptonite. However, it was strong and sweetened exactly the way Clark liked it. 

He shuffled back to lean against the headboard of the bed and inspected the room with some interest as he drank his coffee. He'd only visited the penthouse once while he and Lex were friends, and he hadn't seen any of the bedrooms then. The room was tastefully decorated in muted earth tones and the furniture was sleek and modern, which Clark knew was more to Lex's taste than the heavy baroque furniture that had filled most of the mansion in Smallville. 

There was a photograph in a plain wooden frame hanging by the side of the bed, the only decoration that looked as if it hadn't cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It showed Lex and a much younger Julian sitting outside a caf in some sun-drenched locale. The Lex in the photograph looked more relaxed than Clark had ever seen him, dressed in a pale linen suit and with his head thrown back slightly as if caught in the midst of laughter. 

"I didn't think that you used the penthouse anymore," Clark said, looking away from the photograph and fixing his eyes on the tired curve of Lex's back, "but you wanted to come back here when you were shot." 

"Jules was at the house," Lex said quietly. "I didn't want him to see me like that." 

"If what you're telling me about those gangsters is true, why did you let me go on believing that you were involved with men like that?" 

It had been all that Clark had been able to think about on his long flight around Metropolis on the rare occasions that his mind had cleared sufficiently to allow him to think of anything other than the possible fate of his son. 

"I doubt you would have believed me even if I had told you. Besides, I never did anything with the intention of getting back into your good graces, Clark. In fact it lent a certain verisimilitude to the role that I was playing to have Superman's obvious disapproval of everything that I ever involved myself in." 

Clark wanted to believe it, he really did. "What about all the times I've caught you colluding with super-villains, Lex? Do you pay them off as well?" 

"I like to keep tabs on anyone with power that passes through my city. I'm not stupid enough to try and tackle them myself as most of them are completely insane. They view me as one of their own, thanks in part to the sterling work you do in unwittingly playing the role of my nemesis. I pass on everything I learn of their plans to the Justice League." 

Clark shook his head in shocked disbelief. "You're Mockingbird?" 

Mockingbird had been sending coded information to the Watchtower for years; invaluable information that had helped the League avert countless potentially lethal situations before they even started. Batman, ever distrustful, had been trying to uncover Mockingbird's identity since his first message. They'd all had their suspicions, but Clark had never even considered that it might be Lex. 

"Now is hardly the time for this conversation, Clark." Lex half-turned towards Clark, a small smile playing on his lips. "I took the liberty of sending Mercy to pick you up some clean clothes, if you'd care to get dressed." He gestured towards a pile of clothes on a small chair by the bedroom door. "I'm afraid that we may have to attend a press conference this afternoon and I didn't think you'd want to go as Superman." 

Clark placed the empty coffee cup back on the bedside table and got out of the bed with a sigh. His moment of respite was very definitely at an end. He had to go back out into the world and face the knowledge that his son was missing. Figuring out Lex, no matter how tempting that might be, could definitely wait. 

He paused before picking up his shirt, casting a glance back at Lex. Lex's eyes were dazed and unfocussed and his body was swaying slightly as though his spine was barely able to support his weight. 

"When's this press conference?" Clark asked casually, gathering up his clothes. 

It took Lex a moment to answer. "Two o'clock." 

"Then you've got time to sleep," Clark glared at Lex in the same way that he used to when Johnny was younger and refused to go to bed. 

It seemed to work on Lex just as well as it had done with Johnny. The other man didn't protest, just collapsed sideways from where he was sitting, his arms flung wide. Clark debated taking off Lex's shoes as Lex had done for him, but decided against it. He backed quietly out of the bedroom and started getting dressed in the hall. 

He was pulling on his pants when his cell phone started ringing. He fished it out of his pocket and flipped it open, thinking vaguely that it was probably Lois checking up on his progress. He was going to have to warn her about the forthcoming press conference and bite the bullet and let his mom know about what had happened with Johnny before she saw it on the TV. He'd been hoping that they would have found the boys long before now and he wouldn't have to worry her. She was getting far too old for this kind of stress. 

The caller display, however, informed Clark that the caller was Bruce. Clark felt a small stirring of hope at the sight and his fingers trembled as he connected the call. 

"Do you have any news?" Clark asked, too anxious to bother with any pleasantries. 

"The children are at Gotham City Hospital," Bruce replied curtly in kind, and the bottom fell out of Clark's world. 

"Is Johnny...?" He spluttered into silence, his mouth refusing to form the words. 

"Your son's fine, Clark," Bruce said, his voice softening a little. "The Luthor boy, however, is in a critical condition. My source tells me that he's been very badly injured, but I'm afraid I can't give you any more details than that." 

Clark could hardly even bring himself to feel as grateful as he truly was about the news that Johnny was safe, not when he was going to have to go and tell Lex what had happened to his own son. 

He stammered his thanks to Bruce before returning to the bedroom, all in a kind of fugue state. Lex was already asleep, snoring quietly, in exactly the same position in which he'd fallen. Clark watched him sleep for several minutes as he tried to find the courage to wake him and destroy his world. 

* * *

There was a crowd of men and women in dark suits waiting in the parking lot of the hospital when the helicopter touched down. They encircled Lex as soon as he stepped out of the helicopter, bearing him off before Clark had chance to catch his eye. 

Lex hadn't said a single word to Clark since the moment he'd woken up. He'd made a flurry of phone calls as he walked out of the penthouse into the limo that was somehow already waiting for them at the kerb when they left the LexCorp building, and then fallen silent. He'd spent the flight to Gotham staring blankly into space, his hands clasped tightly on his lap, ignoring any attempts at conversation on Clark's part. He looked like he had been carved from marble, the muscle twitching spasmodically beneath his jaw the only indication he was alive. 

Clark trailed behind the group feeling somewhat like a spare part. Lex had made no indication that he wanted Clark there, and Clark had no idea what he could do or say to help Lex. It wasn't as if the two of them were friends anyway and Lex would probably rather spend time with his son on his own. 

Clark caught sight of a familiar figure slumped dejectedly on a bench beside the big glass doors that led into the hospital. He could feel relief flooding through him like a burst of sunshine on a cloudy day and it left him feeling just as giddy. 

He broke away from Lex's entourage and staggered over towards Johnny, his legs shaking. 

"God, Johnny," Clark laughed, reaching out for his son. "I'm so glad you're okay." 

Johnny raised his head sluggishly and stared right through Clark as though he wasn't there. Clark paused, his hands almost touching Johnny's hair, and stared at him. Johnny's face was caked with dirt and dried blood, save for two clear strips down the centre of each cheek that had obviously been washed clean by tears. Johnny's grey sweatshirt was dyed almost crimson across his chest. 

"What the hell's happened, Johnny?" Clark grabbed hold of Johnny's shoulders, his joy at seeing his son turning leaden in his stomach. "What have you done?" 

Johnny wrenched himself free of Clark's hands and shrugged. 

Something inside Clark snapped. He'd had enough of Johnny's insolence and his lies. He'd let the boy get away with his silence and his appalling attitude for far too long and now Julian Luthor was lying in a hospital bed and Johnny still couldn't bring himself to tell Clark the truth of what had happened. 

"Not this time, Johnny," Clark growled. "This time I'm not letting you stay silent. We will sit here until you are willing to talk, even if we have to stay here for the rest of the day. Where have you been for the last two days and what happened to Julian?" 

Johnny stood up from the bench before Clark had the chance to catch at his arm and pull him back down again. 

"I don't want to talk to you," Johnny screamed, his face inches from Clark's, and then he ran. 

He was a blur before Clark had a chance to take his next breath, and had disappeared from view before he exhaled. 

* * *

There were three places that Clark thought that Johnny might run to; places that would make him feel safe. He was lucky enough that the boy was in the first one that he tried. 

Johnny was sitting on the threadbare couch in the Fortress at the farm, his arms wrapped around his knees and his head bowed so that his face was completely hidden by his tousled hair. He looked ridiculously small and dejected and Clark was almost tempted to let the whole thing drop, but he'd been doing that for years and that had only led them here. He thought of Lex's silent grief and braced himself. 

"Hey, Johnny," Clark said softly as he sat down next to his son. "I think we really need to talk, don't you?" 

Johnny made a noncommittal noise and hung his head even lower so that his forehead was touching his knees. 

"Look, I've been really patient with you, maybe too patient, but you've got to see that this is different. This isn't like you not telling me how you're doing at school or who your friends are. You disappeared for two days and now Julian's in the hospital and I find you covered in blood. What am I supposed to think, Johnny?" 

"I didn't hurt him," Johnny mumbled. "You've got to believe me, Dad. I would never hurt him." 

"I would like to believe that, son, I really would. But you've been lying to me so much recently, and it feels like I don't know you at all. Why did you run away? How long have you been able to run like that? Talk to me, Johnny." 

Johnny's shoulders shook and he made an awful sort of keening noise that almost broke Clark's heart. It would be so easy, so horribly easy, to let it all slide, but Clark had had enough of lies and of silence. 

"Three years," Johnny said finally, his voice thick and dull. "I've had powers for three years now, I guess." 

Clark clutched at the top of Johnny's arm reflexively. He'd thought that the emergence of Johnny's powers might have been brought on by his extreme reaction to the kryptonite exposure. He'd never guessed that his son might have been hiding something like this for so long. "God, Johnny, why didn't you tell me?" 

"Because you wouldn't stop telling me how great it was that I was normal." Johnny lifted his head slightly and Clark could see his glistening eyes, swollen red with tears. "You and Mom and Grandma always went on and on about how lucky I was because I didn't have to put up with being as different as you were when you were a kid. I thought I was pretty lucky too. I didn't want these powers and I thought... I thought that if I ignored them and never used them then maybe they'd go away." 

"You should have told me." Clark's own eyes were beginning to sting with the threat of tears. "I could have helped you. It isn't as bad as you think -" 

"Yes it is," Johnny's head snapped up and his eyes met Clark's defiantly. "I'm not like you, Dad, I'm a monster. I killed Bailey." 

"Bailey?" Clark was honestly confused; he couldn't remember Johnny ever talking about anyone called Bailey. 

He supposed that he should feel horrified that his son had just confessed to killing someone but all he wanted to do was pull Johnny close and hold him tight until some of the pain that was so evident on his contorted face was soothed away. He put a tentative arm around Johnny's shoulders, fully expecting the boy to push him away. 

To Clark's surprise, Johnny curled himself into Clark's arm, bunching the material of Clark's shirt in his fist and resting his head on Clark's chest like he used to when he was really small and had come to his father for comfort when he'd fallen down and hurt himself. "Bailey was Grandma's cat. Don't you remember him?" 

Clark carded Johnny's hair, which was stiff with dried blood, through his fingers as he thought. He dimly recalled a mangy stray that his mom had brought home with her one day when Johnny was about twelve or so. It had slunk around the house scratching at the furniture and bringing up hairballs in Clark's shoes and Clark had been more than happy when it disappeared a couple of months later. He had just presumed that it had gotten tired of the easy life afforded to it at the Kent residence and had returned to its previous hobo life. He hadn't given it a moment's thought since. 

It had obviously been preying on Johnny's mind, however. 

"I was playing with him out in the garden," Johnny said, his shoulders shaking, "and I picked him up and held him really tight because he used to like that. Thing was this time when I squeezed him...God, dad, I totally crushed him. He didn't even look like a cat anymore. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. I was so scared" 

Johnny started sobbing, huge hacking sobs that made his whole body shake. 

"It was an accident, Johnny," Clark said, resting his cheek against the top of Johnny's head, "it doesn't make you a monster. You've never done anything like that on purpose have you?" 

Johnny shook his head jerkily, rubbing his wet face against Clark's shirt. 

"That's the important thing, the thing that means you're not a monster. I really wish you'd told me about everything that was happening to you." 

"I thought you'd hate me. First of all because of what had happened to Bailey, then because I didn't want you to worry about me being different. Once I started lying, I just couldn't stop. The longer I put off telling you, the harder it was to say anything at all." 

"I could never hate you, Johnny. You're the best thing in my life and I love you." Clark wrapped his arms tightly around Johnny's trembling body and willed him to believe his words. 

Johnny said something that could have been, "I'm sorry, Dad," but he was crying so hard that his words were almost unintelligible, even to Clark's superhuman hearing. 

Clark sat with his arms around Johnny until his sobbing settled down to the occasional wet-sounding sniffle before trying to talk to him again. 

"So, you're strong and you can run really fast, any other powers that I need to know about?" 

Johnny sat up slowly, wiping at his eyes and nose with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. "I haven't got x-ray vision yet, which is the only power I actually wanted to have," Johnny offered Clark a weak smile. "Apart from those two I can fly, but that's all." 

"You can fly?" Clark asked incredulously. "I couldn't fly before I was a lot older than you are." 

Johnny's smile broadened. "I can't fly very well yet, I only found out I could a few months ago, but I managed to fly Jules and me out to Gotham. I didn't have to stop once." 

Johnny looked at Clark with a sort of shy anticipation, as if he were expecting Clark to congratulate him on his superior flying skills or something. Clark may have been a little impressed despite himself, but the cold dread that he felt at knowing that Julian knew about Johnny's powers was the far stronger emotion. 

"So, Julian knows about you then? What you are?" 

Johnny's smile slipped a little. "Yeah, but he wouldn't tell anyone. He doesn't know I'm half-alien, though, just that I've got powers. He doesn't know you're Superman or anything. That's why he didn't know about the kryptonite. He really didn't mean to hurt me, Dad." 

Maybe Johnny was right about Julian. Lex had apparently known about Clark for some time and he had never told a soul as far as Clark could tell, not even his own son. It still stung that Johnny felt that he could talk to a boy he had known a handful of weeks and not his own family, though. 

"Why were you in Gotham at all, Johnny?" 

Johnny's eyes closed momentarily and Clark worried that he wasn't going to answer. He sounded slightly embarrassed when he did finally speak. "We wanted to try and join the Teen Titans. Jules thought if I used my powers to help people then maybe I wouldn't be so scared of them. We heard that the Joker had gotten out of Arkham again and that even Batman couldn't find him. We thought that if we managed to catch him then we'd be invited to join the Titans for sure." 

"The Joker?" Clark shook his head in horrified wonder. "God, Johnny, didn't you realise how dangerous that was?" 

Johnny's face crumpled and he looked like he was about to start crying again. Clark cursed himself for an insensitive idiot. Of course he knew how dangerous it was. His best friend was in the hospital and he was still covered in his blood. 

"What happened to Julian?" Clark asked, catching hold of one of Johnny's damp hands and squeezing it gently. 

"He..." Johnny sniffed once or twice before seemingly finding the strength to continue talking. "He was on top of a building, out of the way of everything that was going on, but one of the Joker's goons got behind him somehow when I wasn't looking and he, I don't know, pushed him or something. He fell right through a skylight and I was too slow to catch him. When I finally got to him he was unconscious and covered in blood from the broken glass. I just picked him up and ran straight to the hospital. I didn't know what else to do." 

"You did the right thing, but I wish you'd called me or Lex and let us know what had happened." 

"I know," Johnny laced his fingers through Clark's and held on fast, "and I'm really sorry, but Jules didn't want his dad to know what we were doing. He said that he'd just worry too much." 

"I think all the rules should have changed when Julian got hurt. What was he even doing there, anyway? It was dangerous enough for you, and don't think I condone what you did for a moment, but it was suicide for a boy with no powers to help him." 

Johnny shifted uncomfortably. "Jules is a meta, Dad. He's got powers, but he made me promise not to tell anyone about them. He kept my secret and you've got to understand that I've had to keep his too." 

Clark could only wonder anew exactly who Julian's mother was. It saddened him that his Johnny's teenage years had been defined by secrets and lies in exactly same way that his own were, precisely the thing that he had never wanted for his son to have to endure as he had had to. 

"Hopefully, one of these days the four of us are going to sit down and get everything out in the open. It seems like there's been a lot of misunderstandings between all of us." 

That made Johnny smile again, albeit a very tremulous smile. "I saw you arrive with Mr. Luthor in his helicopter. Are you two getting along better now?" 

"Well, we're not actively trying to kill each other at the moment, which is a definite improvement," Clark said, and Johnny laughed shakily. "I might have misjudged Lex a little and I guess that we're going to have to try and get along if you and Julian are going to be friends." 

"That's good, Dad," Johnny said, sounding almost happy again. "Jules said that his dad was excited that he was going to see you. He thinks that he really wants to be friends with you again." 

Which might have explained some of Lex's behaviour at the mansion, Clark thought with a smirk. Lex's idea of friendship always had been sort of intense. 

"We should get back to the hospital," Clark said, dropping Johnny's hand and getting to his feet. "We'll have to let Lex know what happened to Julian." 

"Could you tell him, Dad?" Johnny asked, rubbing his hands nervously on the front of his jeans as he too stood up from the couch. "Mr. Luthor scares me quite a lot." 

Clark chuckled. "He scares me too sometimes, Johnny. I'll talk to him first, but I think he'll want to hear what happened from you, as well." 

Johnny's eyes were wide and his face pale, but he nodded firmly, clearly resolved. 

"Okay," Clark said, feeling lighter than he had for a long time. "What do you say to a race back to Gotham?" 

"Seriously?" 

"Seriously," Clark answered with a wide grin that he hoped would provide Johnny with enough encouragement to start running. "I want to see how fast you are." 

The barn door banged closed before Clark had even finished speaking. 

* * *

Johnny arrived at the hospital just seconds after Clark. 

"You gave me a head start." Johnny looked as if he wanted to scowl, but his mouth simply wasn't obeying him. 

"It was only a very small head start," Clark conceded. "You're very fast." 

"I like running," Johnny said, his eyes straying towards the bright lights of the hospital. "It's the only power that I really enjoy. It helps me clear my head. Flying still scares me too much to be fun. I was really scared that I was going to drop Jules all the time I was carrying him. I kept my eyes closed most of the way here." 

Clark noticed the faint lines forming between his son's brows and followed the direction of his gaze. "I'll go and talk to Lex and find out how Julian is," he said. "Did you bring any clean clothes with you? I don't think Lex would appreciate you turning up to talk to him looking like that." 

Johnny looked down at his stained sweatshirt and shuddered slightly. "I can go back to the hotel room that Jules and I were staying in; get a shower and a change of clothes." 

"Do you want me to come with you?" Clark asked, eager to spend some more time with his son and, if he was honest, put off his conversation with Lex. 

"Nah, I'm fine," Johnny said and, much to Clark's surprise, walked over to Clark and threw his arms around him. "Thanks, Dad. For everything." 

Clark smiled and hugged Johnny close in return. "No problem. It's what I'm here for. Don't think that we won't be having a very serious conversation about this with your mom and grandma when we get back to Metropolis, though." 

Johnny nodded his head against Clark's shoulder and when he stepped out of Clark's embrace, his eyes looked damp again. 

"Oh, Johnny," Clark said as Johnny began to walk away. "When we do get home, you're grounded for a very long time. I haven't decided quite how long yet, but you might very well be old enough to drink by the time I let you go out of the house again, okay?" 

"Okay, Dad," Johnny said, grinning as he blurred into super-speed. 

Clark watched the space where his son had been for several minutes, his smile so wide that he was sure that anyone who might chance on him, standing alone in a deserted corner of the hospital parking lot, might think he was slightly unhinged. 

He felt like his life had turned a corner and it might well be far better from that point on. Far better, that was, if he managed to survive the conversation he was going to have to have with Lex. 

* * *

There were two huge men in black suits standing either side of the door to Julian's room. They scowled at Clark as he sidled past them, but made no move to stop him. Clark had to wonder if they'd been briefed to let him in or that they were simply cut from the same cloth as the security staff that Lex used to have back in Smallville. He had no doubt that Hope and Mercy were already on their way to Gotham. 

Lex was sitting on a chair pulled up close to an empty bed, staring down at a Styrofoam cup held loosely between his knees. He didn't acknowledge Clark's presence and Clark stood in the doorway, staring at the top of Lex's bowed head, paralysed by his uncertainty over whether he should say or do anything. 

"They've taken him into theatre," Lex said after several long, silent minutes. He got up from his chair and moved over to the small window opposite the bed without looking at Clark. 

Clark scuffed his feet awkwardly against the pale green linoleum. He really wasn't very good at this; most of his rescues ended with him handing over the injured party to the paramedics or ER staff. He never had to deal with the aftermath. 

"He's broken his back," Lex said flatly, resting his elbows on the windowsill and then placing the cup down with an exquisite care that the task didn't demand. "They won't know just how much damage there's been to the spinal cord until he regains consciousness." 

Clark took two hesitant steps towards Lex, but feared to get any closer. Lex's whole demeanour screamed that he wanted didn't want to be approached: from the stiffness of his posture to the way his hands were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white. Clark was almost ready to simply offer his condolences and leave when Lex spoke again. 

"Did you find Johnny?" he asked, resting his chin atop his clasped hands. 

"Yeah, he's okay. We talked." Clark shifted his weight uneasily. He really wasn't sure how much he should tell Lex. Sure, he seemed to know what he was, what Johnny was, but Lex seeming to know wasn't the same as the same as Clark actually telling him, actually saying the words. He knew that intimately from their days in Smallville. 

"Did he tell you anything about what might have happened to them? About what happened to Jules?" Nothing changed in Lex's posture or his expression, but Clark could hear a hint of desperation in his normally carefully-modulated voice. 

Clark could have said no. He could have lied and told Lex that the boys had just spent the weekend blowing off some steam and Julian was simply the victim of an unfortunate accident. It would have been so easy. 

It had been easy to lie to Lex when Clark was a teenager and nothing good had come of it. Besides, if what Johnny had told him about Julian was true, then Lex had almost as much to hide as Clark. 

"The boys came here to try and capture the Joker. They were hoping to get invited to join the Teen Titans." It sounded crazy now that Clark said it aloud, but then most of Clark's life to date would be considered crazy by most people. "One of his men pushed Julian through a skylight. Johnny wasn't quick enough to catch him." 

Lex blinked slowly several times and then the corner of his lips curled upwards a little. "They wanted to join the Teen Titans?" 

"Apparently so." Clark felt his own lips twitching in response to Lex's smile despite everything. 

Lex smile quickly faded and he unfurled his fingers to scrub at his eyes with the heels of his palms. "Why the hell would they want to do something like that?" 

"Julian thought it would help Johnny come to terms with his powers." Clark was surprised at just how easily he could tell Lex the truth. He'd always expected that it would feel devastating somehow, like walking to the edge of a cliff and then just slipping right off, but it didn't scare him at all. 

"That sounds like Jules." Lex looked over at Clark through the cage of his splayed fingers, his eyebrows arched above their tips. "Although I am surprised that he'd allow himself to get into such a dangerous situation." 

"Johnny told me that Julian has some powers himself," Clark said, walking over to the window to stand beside Lex. "Maybe he thought he would be safe." 

Lex's shoulders slumped and he inhaled sharply. "He heals quickly, one of the few things he inherited from me," he said shakily when he finally released his breath. "None of my studies had led to me believe that the mutations the meteors caused would be passed on to the next generation, but Jules has never so much as caught a cold in his life and, when he broke his arm playing polo last summer, it healed completely within a couple of days." 

It was something that Clark had long suspected but had never expected confirmed. Lex had lived through so many things that would have killed a normal man, the bullet wound that he had sustained at the warehouse only the latest in a long list of potentially fatal injuries that the other man had survived that stretched all the way back to Smallville. He wore his differences for the whole world to see in his unlined face, but Clark had always thought that Lex would never admit to being anything other than a normal human given his many impassioned diatribes against the willingness of the public to entrust their safety to superheroes rather than learning to become super themselves. 

"I suppose I shouldn't be as worried as I am about Jules' injuries, given the circumstances," Lex said with false brightness. "No doubt he'll be back on his feet in no time at all." 

Clark reached out his hand automatically, wanting to offer Lex some comfort, but his fingers curled closed impotently as they brushed the fabric of Lex's jacket sleeve. He had no idea how Lex would react if he touched him. The last time they'd had any sort of physical contact was during a protracted battle following one of Clark's all-too-frequent raids on one of Lex's labs when Clark had been forced to pin Lex against a wall to stop the other man breaking his knuckles trying to punch him out. 

Clark searched desperately for something reassuring to say and came up a complete blank. He had no idea how to talk to Lex in any way that wasn't confrontational anymore; it had become such an ingrained habit. 

Embarrassed, Clark turned his attention the small courtyard outside the window. There was a man standing beneath the scrubby tree in the centre of the courtyard, wearing a jacket over his hospital gown and smoking a cigarette, his eyes darting around furtively. Clark watched the man finish his first cigarette and light a second, listening to Lex's slow, even breathing and the rapid trip-hammer of his heart, the rest of the room fading into insubstantiality. 

"I didn't just lose my hair in the meteor shower," Lex said unexpectedly, breaking Clark out of his reverie. "I also lost the chance to ever have a child by normal means." 

Clark looked over at Lex in surprise. Lex's hands were held loosely at his side now, but he had turned his head away from Clark so that Clark could only see the smooth curve of one cheek and the straining tendons of Lex's neck unless he shifted his position. He didn't move. Lex looked like a spooked horse that was ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. 

"It was something that I'd resigned myself to. In fact, I hadn't thought about it in years until shortly before that trip to Europe." 

"Lex, are sure you want to tell me about this?" Clark asked hesitantly. 

Lex nodded once. "You were honest with me about your son. You could have lied, and I wouldn't have blamed you if you had. If we'd been open about everything from the start then maybe we wouldn't be in this situation now." 

Clark didn't know whether Lex was referring to their sons or he and Clark. Perhaps it didn't even matter. Lies between them had only ever been destructive. It might well be time to see if the truth was any less painful for all of them. 

"A team from LexCorp was working on a technique to produce germ cells from fully differentiated somatic cells. It was due to revolutionise the entire in vitro fertilization industry and allow men like me to father their own children without having to resort to sperm donors. What you have to understand, before I continue, is that at the time I had no interest in having a son" - Lex cleared his throat, turning his head even further away from Clark - "I merely wanted an heir. 

"It had occurred to me that in using this technique, I wasn't constrained by the usual limits of reproduction. The other half my child's genes could come from any source that I could procure a cell sample from. I could make an heir who would also be my greatest weapon. To that end, I used a sample from the most powerful meta that was available, and don't doubt that Jules would be _your_ son as well a mine if I'd been able to get my hands on some of your cells, Clark." 

The science had left Clark a little lost, but he understood enough to know that he didn't approve. "So you had your scientists grow Julian in a lab then?" 

"No," Lex chuckled quietly, "Jules was carried by a lovely German woman who was paid very handsomely to act as a surrogate and then keep silent following the birth. I had to move the project somewhere where the laws regarding human experimentation were a lot less stringent than they are here and the authorities more easily bought. Then, after Jules was born, I had the all of the relevant records destroyed and the scientists who were working on the project were either moved on to other areas of LexCorp or, if they couldn't be trusted to keep quiet, disposed of entirely. 

"I didn't want anyone to know about Jules until I was ready to use him. Believe me, it's not something I'm proud of, but I was a different man then." 

It took all of Clark's self restraint to stop himself from grabbing Lex. He'd known that the other man was capable of this sort of thing and no one else had believed him. He'd almost started believing himself that he'd misunderstood Lex. 

"What changed?" Clark forced himself to ask. It had been fourteen years ago, after all. 

"I'd like to say that the first time I held my son, everything was different, but I'd be lying. He was left with a nanny from the moment he was born and I have to admit that I barely gave him a second thought for the remainder of the time I was in Europe. It was only when we returned to the penthouse in Metropolis and I couldn't ignore him when he started crying anymore that I started spending time with him. God, I was so scared, Clark." Lex's head drooped slightly. "I had no idea how to be a father. Not a decent one anyway." 

"You seem to be doing a good job of it now," Clark said, reaching out for Lex again. This time, when he made contact with Lex's sleeve, he curled his fingers around the other man's shoulder. Astonishingly, Lex didn't shrug off Clark's hand as Clark had expected he would. His body even seemed to relax a little. 

"Thank you," Lex said softly. "It was difficult for me at first. I had to relinquish some control of LexCorp in order to be around for him more because I didn't want him to be raised by his nanny as I was after my mother fell ill. I wanted him to know me and I wanted him to have a better relationship with me than I did with my own father. Lionel's ambition twisted the entire path of my life and, as Jules grew older, I realised that I didn't want my own ambition to do the same to him. 

"When his powers began manifesting, I never even considered asking him to use them to my advantage. I was just scared that someone would find out what he could do and exploit them as I had planned to do, or take him away from me." Lex turned towards Clark a little and he attempted to smile. "It was only then that I began to understand why your parents disliked me so much. In fact I admire their self-control. If someone like I was then ever came into Jules' life, I think I would have them shot on sight." 

"What powers does Julian have?" Clark asked, testing the limits of Lex's unexpected bout of honesty. 

"He can read minds and transmit his own thoughts to others. Recently, he's developed a limited form of telekinesis." Lex closed his eyes, his fair lashes trembling. "The perfect weapon for a ruthless businessman, I think you'll agree. I'm surprised that you never noticed what he could do. He hasn't learnt any subtlety in using his powers yet. He reminds me of you as a teenager." 

Clark frowned. He hadn't observed anything out of the ordinary about Julian but, given the fact that his own son had successfully hidden his powers for so long, he really shouldn't be surprised. 

Lex knees buckled suddenly and he sagged against Clark. Clark staggered back a step, grabbing at Lex's waist reflexively to stop the other man from falling. 

"He saved me, Clark," Lex said, turning in Clark's arms so that he was looking directly at Clark for the first time since he had entered the room. His eyes were bloodshot and shining with tears. "I don't want to think of what I would have become if it wasn't for him. He's everything to me, my entire life. If he'd died -" 

Clark didn't let Lex finish the sentence. He pulled the other man towards him and embraced him tightly before he even had the chance to think whether or not it was the right thing to do. Lex took several large gulping breaths like a drowning man returned to dry land and pressed his forehead against Clark's shoulder. 

Clark stroked Lex's back rhythmically and made meaningless soothing noises. He'd grown used to people crying on him as Superman, but had never had the same happen to him so often as Clark Kent as in the past few days. 

However, Lex wasn't crying, rather he seemed to be fighting with his need to cry. His fingers clawed into Clark's sides and his back convulsed again and again, but no tears appeared to come. Clark rested his cheek against the top of Lex's head and wondered what the hell he was getting himself into. 

They'd never hugged much when they were friends, and when they had it had always been for some great dramatic reason, never for the simple comfort of human contact or as an affirmation of their friendship. Still, Clark had always taken a certain guilty pleasure then in being so close to Lex, taken into his personal space where so few people were allowed. He felt the same now, but intensified by so many years of having missed it. 

He'd been wrong before. Lex felt the same just as he still smelled the same: surprisingly strong despite his slender frame, steel wrapped in silk and finely woven wool. 

Lex's shaking slowed and finally stopped. He pulled back from Clark's arms a little so that he could wipe at his dry eyes. Then he blinked up at Clark owlishly, his lips parted slightly as if he were about to speak, maybe offer some sort of weak apology. 

Clark kissed him before he could say a word. It was a reflex action, something which Clark had always wanted to do when they'd been in this position before but had been too young, and too scared, to ever attempt. 

That, or the stress of the past few days had finally caught up with him and he'd had some sort of breakdown. 

Lex's lips were lax and unresponsive and Clark pulled back quickly, cheeks burning with shame. Lex ran his tongue slowly over his lips, and then caught Clark's hand before Clark could move even further away. 

"Don't go, Clark," Lex said, lacing his fingers with Clark's. "I could really do with a friend right now. We could be friends again, couldn't we? I know that we caused each other a lot of pain in the past, but I've changed. We've both changed enough, I hope, that it could work this time." 

"We could try," Clark said, trying desperately to ignore his own discomfort. He could try to be friends with Lex again. No doubt they'd argue, hurt each other, and Clark would have to bury his attraction to Lex just as deeply as he had when he was a teenager. That was something that he had managed to master back then but had clearly lost the skill for. 

Lex would pretend that Clark had never kissed him and they would sit together companionably and watch Julian abuse expensive musical instruments at school concerts or support Johnny when he played football. Clark could get through it. It seemed that, whether he liked it or not, the Luthors were now part of his life again and if he had to suffer through the next few years until Johnny went to college wrestling with his desire to kiss Lex again, then so be it. 

"Thanks, that means a lot to me. Oh, and Clark, what happened just then...?" A wave of embarrassment flooded through Clark and he hung his head, not wanting to see Lex's face as he told him that it should never have happened. "I'd like you to keep that in mind. It's something that I'd very much like to explore further once I'm sure that Jules is going to be okay and I can give it the attention it deserves." 

Clark grinned. Maybe being around Lex in the future wasn't going to be as arduous as he feared. With encouragement like that how could it be? 

* * *

Lex had Julian flown back to Metropolis as soon as the boy was in a stable enough condition to be moved, which proved to be much sooner than even the most optimistic timetable had predicted. Clark presumed that it was for that reason that Lex moved into his newly adapted penthouse rather than a hospital in Metropolis. 

Speculation was rife regarding what had happened to the Luthor heir, but not a single news story that Clark saw even came close to the truth of what had happened. No doubt the doctors in Gotham had found themselves considerably richer for downplaying the seriousness and obscuring the possible cause of Julian's injuries. 

Lex himself disappeared completely from the public eye. He took an unprecedented leave of absence from LexCorp, retreated to his penthouse, and closed the doors on the world. 

Apart from a handful of curt phone calls keeping Clark and Johnny up to date with Julian's progress, Lex hadn't contacted Clark at all, despite his appeal for friendship at the hospital. 

Although Clark knew that Lex was likely just concentrating all of his energy on taking care of his son, there was still a tiny part of him that worried that Lex had had a change of heart about the kiss they had shared in Gotham and was keeping his distance. 

It was only a very tiny part, though. Most of his time was occupied with Johnny anyway, testing the limits of his powers. The faster they ran together, the higher they flew, the more Johnny seemed to reconcile himself to his powers, even to enjoy them. Clark had often wished for someone like himself to lessen his own feelings of otherness and fear as a teenager and he was glad that Johnny had, albeit belatedly, allowed Clark to offer that support to him. 

Nevertheless, he was somewhat relieved to receive an invitation to lunch from Lex, midway through the third week after the Luthors' return to Metropolis, to make up for the abortive attempt at the mansion in Smallville. Clark tried not to get his hopes up. Lex was just as brusque on the phone as ever - simply giving Clark the time at which he expected to see them, and avoiding all Clark's attempts at starting a conversation - but it was a start. 

* * *

Johnny had wanted to fly to the penthouse - he'd wanted to fly pretty much everywhere lately - but Clark had to insist that they take the truck. He thought that appearing on the balcony of the penthouse, just as Superman had done on so many occasions under much less pleasant circumstances, would not put Lex in the best of moods. 

They drove part of the way in silence, but it wasn't the old sort of silence, the silence that had made Clark feel like there was a gulf between his son and him that he couldn't bridge. It wasn't exactly comfortable either, but that was mostly due to the fact that Johnny kept looking sidelong at Clark and opening his mouth as if he wanted to say something and then closing it again and shaking his head. 

Clark let this continue until they were a few blocks from LexCorp Towers before he finally asked, "Is there something you want to talk to me about, son?" 

For a moment, it looked like Johnny wasn't going to answer. He clenched his hands together on his lap and stared at them, his face flushing for some reason. 

Clark felt a slight flutter of unease in his stomach. He had thought that they'd got past this. It wasn't as if they spent hours in deep conversation, but Johnny had been talking to him and answering questions when asked them. 

"Are you and Mr. Luthor friends now?" Johnny said eventually, still not looking at Clark. 

Clark sighed in relief. Obviously Johnny was just worried that he and Lex had fallen out again; a fairly natural conclusion given their lack of contact over the past few weeks. 

"I'd like to think so. Lex has just been too preoccupied with Julian lately to want to spend any time together. You can understand that can't you?" Clark thought he sounded convincing. Considering the number of times that he'd repeated that particular justification in his mind recently, he wasn't really surprised. 

"I guess so," Johnny said, but he didn't sound as certain as Clark had hoped. His cheeks reddened even more. 

"Is there anything else worrying you?" Clark asked, wondering vaguely if he should perhaps pull up the truck somewhere so they could talk properly. 

"Are you dating him?" Johnny asked in a rush. 

Clark wished he had stopped the truck. As it was, he swerved a little but managed to avoid crashing into the oncoming traffic thanks to judicious use of his super-reflexes. 

"What makes you think that?" Clark was proud of how level his voice sounded. 

He didn't know what would have made Johnny even think that. Clark wasn't sure what he thought about the idea yet. Or rather, he thought about it a lot, but he didn't know how to feel about it. 

"When I got to the hospital in Gotham, you and Mr. Luthor were holding hands. I saw you through the window in the door." Johnny shrugged. "I just thought that maybe you were... I don't know. It's pretty stupid, I guess." 

Clark almost told Johnny that he was just offering Lex some comfort, that Johnny had totally misread what he had seen but he had promised to be honest, and not just with Lex. If something did happen with Lex - and God, he hoped it would - he wanted Johnny to be okay with that. 

"Would it bother you if I was?" Clark asked hesitantly, terrified of what Johnny might say. 

Johnny was silent again for several, terrible minutes, but finally he straightened up, unclasped his hands, and smiled shyly at Clark. "It'd be weird, really weird, but I guess it'd be okay. I just never knew you were into men." 

Clark smiled at Johnny briefly before returning his attention to the road. "I dated a couple of guys at college, but nothing serious." 

It had been more than a couple and calling it dating was stretching the definition of dating to its very limits, but Johnny didn't need to know that. 

"Does Mom know?" 

"Yeah, your mom and I didn't keep any secrets from each other." Clark said, heat washing across his own face. Lois had liked to hear about his experiments in college in excruciating detail. 

"Wow. My family just gets weirder and weirder." 

Clark chanced another glance over at Johnny and was heartened to see that, even though Johnny was shaking his head, his smile was even broader than before. 

"So you really wouldn't mind if I was dating Lex?" 

It seemed almost unbelievable. He and Lois had brought Johnny up to be open-minded, it was impossible not to when you knew that you had to tell your child at some point that he was half-alien and his father was Superman, but he had expected a little more resistance. 

"I can't even remember the last time you dated anyone, Dad. I thought you needed a girlfriend, but if you'd prefer to have a boyfriend, I suppose you could do worse than Lex Luthor." 

It was hardly a ringing endorsement, but Clark discovered he was slightly more confident about seeing Lex again, nevertheless. 

* * *

It was strange for Clark to be on the list of people that Lex's security guards were allowed to let pass them without comment again, and stranger still to be knocking on the door to the penthouse instead of bursting in through the windows or, as had happened on one particularly memorable occasion, though the wall. 

Julian opened the door and smiled brightly at Clark and Johnny. Despite his suspicions that Lex had taken Julian out of hospital to prevent people from noticing that he was healing a little faster than was normal, Clark was still surprised to see how well the boy looked. The deep cuts on his face and hands had faded until they looked like little more than scratches that could have easily been explained away as resulting from an encounter with an angry cat. 

The slight awkwardness of his movements and the stiffness of his legs as he stepped aside to let Clark and Johnny into the apartment were the only outward signs that anything untoward had happened to him at all. 

"How long have you been out of the wheelchair?" Johnny asked as kicked off his shoes, totally disregarding the neat shoe rack by the door. 

"A couple of days, but I can only manage for a little while without it. Dad doesn't think I'm ready, though; he's scared I'll hurt myself." Julian stumbled back another couple of steps, catching hold of the doorframe as both Clark and Johnny reached out to steady him 

"Where is your dad?" Johnny asked in a tone that was obviously meant to be casual, but which was failing utterly in its purpose. 

"In the kitchen." Julian sounded suspicious, and Clark could hardly blame him. 

"Well, why don't you show me the rest of the apartment?" Johnny linked his arm with Julian's and helped him regain his balance. "You could help Mr. Luthor with lunch, Dad." 

Johnny winked very obviously at Clark and Julian's eyes narrowed, glaring at Clark and Johnny as if he suspected them of being involved in some sort of horrible conspiracy that somehow involved cornering Lex alone in the kitchen. Clark bent down quickly to avoid both boys' eyes and made the task of taking of his own shoes and putting them, along with Johnny's shoes, onto the shoe rack stretch out until he heard Julian and Johnny walking away. 

Clark shook his head in amusement as he stood up. Clearly, Johnny had inherited his sense of subtlety from his father. Julian wouldn't need to use any of his telepathic powers to figure out what was going on. He could only hope that Julian would be as understanding as Johnny appeared to be when he did. 

Clark decided to follow Johnny's advice for the lack of any better plan presenting itself. He could hardly make the task of rearranging shoes last until lunch was ready. Now the time was upon him he found himself strangely nervous and almost unwilling to see Lex again. 

Clark had never lacked for courage, however, and he forced himself to walk down the corridor and into the kitchen. 

Lex was working industriously, stirring at bubbling pans and occasionally adding a pinch of some herb another; the only splash of colour amongst the harsh chrome and black marble. Clark watched him from the doorway for a moment, marvelling again that this man before him was actually the same Lex Luthor that he'd known as a kid and not some strange interloper who, somewhat unbelievably, knew his way around a kitchen. 

Then Lex rounded the counter and Clark was certain that this man wasn't actually Lex. Lex had never worn jeans. Or a T-shirt. Especially not a blue T-shirt. Clark couldn't help but stare. Somehow Lex still managed to look like he was wearing the finest in Hong Kong tailoring. Obviously it was some sort of secret Luthor power. 

"Is there a problem, Clark?" Lex asked as he picked up a knife and began to chop up a clove of garlic. 

"I just would have never guessed you owned jeans." Clark ventured into the kitchen a little way. "Or had arms." 

Lex turned his head slightly and scowled at Clark, although the way his eyes were crinkled at the corners suggested that he was more amused than annoyed. 

"It was Jules' suggestion. He thought that I could stand to be a little more casual, for some reason." Lex looked down at the T-shirt as if he was shocked, and more than a little disgusted, to see himself wearing it. 

"It looks good on you," Clark said without really thinking about it. 

On further inspection Clark realised that he meant it. He'd never seen Lex look so approachable or, well, normal. The flattering way that the jeans hugged his ass helped as well. 

Lex turned his head, and his attention, back to the task of chopping and made no further comment. Clark suddenly felt foolish and his apprehension returned tenfold. Lex had made it clear that he didn't have time for Clark at the moment and Clark was clearly wasting his own time trying to flirt with the man, or whatever the hell it was he was doing. He just had to be patient. 

"Do you need any help with anything?" Clark asked, leaning up against the counter next to Lex. 

"No, I've got everything under control," Lex said tightly. 

Clark quickly became entranced by the play of muscles under Lex's skin as he raised and lowered the knife, reducing the garlic to a near atomic state that Clark was sure that no recipe could ever call for. The skin of Lex's wrists looked unbelievably smooth and Clark had to clench his hands into fists to stop himself reaching out and seeing if they felt that way too. He doubted Lex would appreciate it and he didn't want to chance his luck while Lex was holding a knife. It looked pretty expensive and Clark didn't want Lex to have to break it. 

"Julian looks good," Clark said, staring down at his reflection in the glossy marble countertop so that he didn't have to look at Lex and fight with the urge to kiss him again. "How's he coping with everything that's happened?" 

"He's doing fine." 

"And you? How are you coping?" 

"I'm fine." 

"You're not missing work?" 

"Not really." 

"Johnny's been practicing controlling his powers. He's been making great progress. He can almost catch me when we're running and he can fly for a full hour now without getting tired." 

"That's good." 

Clark couldn't think of any more suitable topics of small talk and Lex was obviously unwilling to try and offer any himself. The silence became thick and uncomfortable, broken only by the snick of Lex's knife against the chopping board as he cleaved the garlic into its quantum components. 

Clark was seriously contemplating telling Lex about his mom's latest bridge game just for something to say, a hitherto unknown low born of desperation, when Lex put the knife down very carefully and braced his hands against the countertop. 

He took one deep, shaky breath and then said, "This isn't going to work, Clark." 

Clark blinked rapidly several times. Wasn't that supposed to be his line? 

"I thought we'd decided that we had to try and make this work for Julian and Johnny's sake?" Clark asked, a little desperately. "We've barely even given it a chance." 

"That's not..." Lex's eyes closed for a second and he appeared to be fighting for composure. "That's not what I meant, Clark. I've no doubt that we could be perfectly civil to one another. But this" - Lex raised one hand and waved it the air between the two of them - "I don't think I can cope with just being friends when I want more. It was difficult enough twenty years ago, but knowing you might want the same thing I do makes it all the more painful. 

"That's why I've been keeping my distance from you these past few weeks. I thought it would have helped me prepare for this, but I'm beginning to think that it wasn't long enough." 

Clark shook his head in exasperation. Trust Lex to make things far more complicated than they should be. They had established how they both felt and Clark was of the opinion that there should now be far more kissing and a lot less talking. As far as Clark was concerned, two decades plus change was more than long enough to wait. It was hardly as if they were acting impulsively. Impulsive would have been making his move on Lex when he was seventeen and totally unsure whether what he felt for his best friend was passion or the beginnings of enmity. 

He'd been cautious then and, looking back, although it had been a hard decision, it had probably been the right one. The dissolution of their friendship had been explosive enough. Clark couldn't even begin to imagine how much worse it would have been if they'd been romantically involved. He was certain that they wouldn't be here now, gifted a second chance to make things better. 

Or at least it would be a second chance if Lex would just quit stalling. 

"You're not sure if we can be friends? That's great. I don't want us to be `just friends' either. Why can't we try that, Lex? See how that goes?" 

Lex's flexed his fingers rhythmically against the countertop. "I've wanted that for so long, Clark," he said, his voice low and expressionless. "Even when I shouldn't have, even when I hated you and thought I wanted nothing more than your death. That's why I want this to be right." 

Lex pushed himself away from the countertop and turned swiftly toward Clark, staring straight through him with eyes that were just as expressionless as his voice. "That's why we can't try. Jules has to be my first priority right now and I can't afford any distractions, and I'm afraid that's what you would be. That's not fair on any of us. When Jules is better, then perhaps we can have this conversation again." 

"Julian does look a lot better," Clark said, feeling slightly guilty for the small part of him that was glad of that simply because he could use it as a lever to get to Lex. "His cuts are nearly all healed and he seems to be walking around okay." 

"Does he?" Lex said, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Anyway, that's beside the point. Even when Jules is fully healed, and I have no idea when that will be, there's still so much to consider. He's missed a lot of school and no doubt he'll need physio for quite some time. I can't even begin to think about starting a relationship until our lives have returned to something even vaguely resembling normalcy." 

Clark remembered this from when they were friends as well, Lex closing himself off and pulling away when he probably needed help the most. When he was younger, Clark had let him do so, too wrapped up in his own problems to even imagine that anyone else had them most of the time, especially Lex, who had always seemed strong enough to deal with anything that life threw at him. It had been a mistake then and not one that Clark wanted to repeat now. 

"I'd say this was probably the best time to have someone who's just there for you." Clark said, sidling a little closer towards Lex. Lex flinched, but did not try to move away; something which Clark chose to interpret as a good sign. "Who's looking after you, Lex? I know how hard it must be for you. I was terrified when Johnny got sick from the kryptonite, but I had Mom and Lois there to help me. Who do you have that you can talk to about this?" 

A faint flush of colour spread across Lex's pale cheeks. He opened his mouth as if to answer but quickly shut it again. It made Clark's heart ache a little because he knew the answer to his own question already. Lex didn't let anyone get close to him and hadn't for years. He had Hope and Mercy but, although they could be depended on to defend Lex's life to the death, Clark doubted that they were very good at lending him a sympathetic ear. 

"I'm not sure that I want to bring someone else into my life, anyway. I don't want Jules to get used to having someone around and then have to suffer through losing them if the relationship were to break up," Lex said, evidently deciding that his previous argument was lacking somewhat and changing tack. 

Clark snorted, not convinced by this new argument either. If Lex wasn't interested in him, if he'd just been polite back at the hospital, then Clark would rather he just came out and said it. He needed to know where he stood. 

"Surely Julian's used to that by now," Clark said, a little cattily. "I've seen you with hundreds of women over the years." 

Lex shook his head dismissively. "They're nothing more than photo-ops, Clark, as I've found it keeps the press from digging too vigorously into my private life. For some reason, people are deeply suspicious of a man who never dates. I never bring anyone back home with me or introduce them to Jules. I wouldn't unless I thought the relationship was going to last long-term, and I've not found anyone that fits the bill lately." 

"Not even me?" Clark asked with a rueful smile. He knew he was needling Lex, and Lex shot him a dark scowl in response. 

"We hardly have the best track record. No doubt you'd find something out about me that you don't approve of sooner or later and, as we've amply proven over the years, we don't handle conflict between us very well." 

"I thought that you didn't get involved in anything I wouldn't approve of anymore?" 

"I don't. However, there are still plenty of things about my past that you don't know. Things that you definitely wouldn't like to hear. Do you think you could live with that?" Lex shrugged. "I think we'd be trying to kill each other within a week." 

Clark had forgotten just how much of a pessimist Lex could be. "We've got to look to the future, Lex. Isn't that what you've been trying to make me understand over the past couple of months? Yeah, we might fight and we might not last, but we won't know unless we try. Honestly, how long do you expect to put your life on hold just in case you might upset Julian? Until he starts college? Until he's married and moves out for good? But, of course, then you might have grandchildren to think about. 

"I think you're not giving Julian enough credit. I would have thought that Johnny wouldn't have liked the idea of us dating either, but we talked about it today and he really surprised me by being fine about it." 

"You told Johnny?" Lex's expression was the very definition of incredulous. "Clark, don't you think that you were perhaps jumping the gun a little? I don't remember agreeing to anything." 

"He figured it out on his own." Clark took a risk and reached out for Lex. Lex raised his eyebrows slightly as Clark's fingers closed around his wrist, but he didn't try to move away. "Look, I think it's a sign that we still have these feelings after all these years, after everything that's happened between us. At least we both know that we're stubborn if nothing else. That might be enough." 

Clark rubbed his thumb over Lex's pulse point as Lex stared at him, his eyes wide and unblinking. Lex's skin was even softer than it looked, softer than the fine silk of the shirts he habitually wore. Clark wished that he had some of Julian's ability to read minds as he tried to discern something, anything, from Lex's blank expression. He didn't think that he could give up on this now. 

Lex swallowed hard and then said, "This has to be serious, Clark. You have to be totally sure," in a voice barely louder than a whisper. 

Clark needed no more permission than that. He wrapped his arms around Lex before Lex had the chance to have any second thoughts and kissed him. 

Kissing Lex properly wasn't anything like Clark had imagined. In all his fevered dreams as a teenager, Lex had been the aggressor, coercing Clark into doing things that Clark wanted, but thought he shouldn't. 

Instead Lex was passive, allowing Clark to lead the kiss and deepen it, his hands resting lightly on Clark's hips. 

Clark knew that he shouldn't feel disappointed, after all he was getting what he wanted, but he did all the same. Maybe having Lex as a lover would nothing like the picture he had built up over the years; his inviolate fantasy? Or maybe Lex still wasn't convinced that this was what _he_ wanted? 

To that end, Clark slipped his hand beneath the worn fabric of Lex's T-shirt, ghosting across the heated skin of Lex's stomach. Lex allowed this placidly. He didn't move back, but he didn't move into Clark's touch either. It was only when Clark let his fingers drift below the waistband of Lex's jeans that the other man seemed to come to life. 

It was almost as if Clark's questing fingers had flipped some sort of on switch. Suddenly, Lex took control of the kiss, biting none-too-gently at Clark's lips as his hands scrabbled up Clark's back, pulling him closer. 

They staggered backwards until Lex's back hit the counter with an obvious jolt that nearly toppled them both over. Lex broke away from Clark briefly with a short bark of stunned laughter before his hot mouth was back at Clark's throat, sliding unerringly toward the sensitive spot behind Clark's ear. 

Clark groaned, cupping Lex's ass firmly with the intension of lifting him onto the counter and spreading him out right there, amongst the partially prepared ingredients of their no doubt ruined lunch. There was a little niggling part of Clark's brain that was telling him that it probably wasn't a good idea to fuck Lex in the kitchen, but he really couldn't remember why that might be. Not with Lex's ragged breathing echoing in his ear and Lex's hand tugging impatiently at the buttons of his shirt. 

"Oh my God," Clark heard Julian cry out with what sounded like genuine distress from somewhere that sounded very far away, but which was probably horrifically close by. "My eyes are burning. I think I may be stricken blind. Oh please, God, let me be stricken blind." 

Lex pushed Clark away with enough force that it would have knocked any normal man to the floor and took a few uneven steps toward where his son was standing, looking pale and shocked, beside Johnny in the doorway to the kitchen. Lex looked absolutely riven, one shaky hand stretched out towards Julian. 

Lex cupped his hand around Julian's cheek when he reached him. "Jules, I'm sorry. I..." 

Julian looked up at Lex for a moment, his mouth slack, before turning his head towards Johnny; who looked as though he was trying desperately to slink away unnoticed. 

"I did tell you," Johnny said with an apologetic-looking shrug. 

"And I believed you," Julian said, flashing Johnny a rather wan smile. "I didn't need to see it with my own eyes. My poor scarred eyes." 

"Are you okay with this, Jules?" Lex asked cautiously, running his thumb over Julian's cheekbone. 

Julian's smile brightened considerably. "It's fine, Dad, really. Believe me, it's not exactly a surprise. Johnny's been going on about it for weeks now." 

"Really?" Lex's head swung towards Johnny and fixed him with a rather icy glare. 

Johnny ducked behind Julian in what was obviously a somewhat cowardly, albeit eminently sensible, attempt at avoiding any of Lex's ire that might be directed his way. 

"Yes, really," Julian nodded firmly, "but I don't think that even you have enough money to pay for all the therapy I'm going to need after this. And couldn't you have at least waited until after we'd eaten? I might well have been put off my food. Which I think is burning, by the way." 

Lex's expression rapidly shifted through a complicated series of emotions - relief, amusement, and maybe even happiness all vying for prominence - before finally settling into something that looked like annoyance. 

"You shouldn't even be out of your chair," Lex said gruffly, slipping his arm around Julian's shoulders. "I know you feel strong enough, but Dr. Mason did say it was still too early for you to be walking around." 

Julian made a small sound of protest as Lex steered him out of the kitchen, but acquiesced nevertheless. 

"Oh, and, Clark," Lex called over his shoulder. "The disaster in Smallville aside, I presume you can be trusted to stir things until I get back?" 

"I think I can manage that," Clark answered. His own smile was completely wasted on the back of Lex's head. 

Clark picked up a wooden spoon and wandered over to poke at the contents of the pots on the stove in what he hoped was a useful way. Johnny joined him a moment later, carrying the garlic that Lex had been chopping earlier. 

"So, I guess you and Mr. Luthor are dating then?" Johnny asked as he handed Clark the chopping board. 

"Yeah, I think we might be," Clark said, suddenly feeling lighter than he had for years; incredibly - perhaps stupidly - optimistic about his future. 

He had his second chance and he was going to make sure that he didn't let Lex slip away from him again. A lifetime ago Lex had promised him that they had a great destiny together. Clark wouldn't have thought it would ever be possible, but they did still have time to make sure that promise became reality. 

* * *

Clark stretched and couldn't help but smile indulgently when he looked over at the alarm clock on the bedside table and saw it was only eight o'clock. 

Recently, he'd discovered an appreciation of waking early on Sunday mornings. Johnny was usually at his mom's at the weekend and Jules could be counted on to not emerge from his bed until lunchtime if he didn't have school. Consequently, Clark could look forward to a few hours alone with Lex on the only day that the other man regularly took off work. 

Unfortunately, Jules seemed to have inherited his allergy to early starts from Lex. Clark would never have guessed it, but Lex slept like the dead. True to form, when Clark rolled over, Lex was still deeply asleep, one hand curled loosely on his pillow the other stretched along the mattress as if he were unconsciously reaching toward Clark. 

It wasn't that Clark didn't appreciate the gesture or the softness of Lex's usually sharp expression that was only achieved in repose, but he had much better plans in mind for the morning than watching Lex sleep. 

He placed a gentle kiss on Lex's cheek, the only part of him that was exposed, as he trailed one hand down the sleep-warmed skin of Lex's flank to cup his ass. Lex made a small noise that suggested that, while he wasn't quite awake, Clark was certainly well on the way to ensuring that he soon would be. 

Clark pressed more kisses, sloppy and open-mouthed, to the curve of Lex's neck, to each of the freckles that dotted his chest, as he moved closer to Lex, pushing the covers aside. By the time he reached Lex's nipples, circling them with his tongue, Lex's hands were in his hair and his heart was racing beneath Clark's ear. 

Clark glanced up as he slid his mouth further down Lex's body, his tongue leaving thick wet stripes across the smooth planes of Lex's stomach and setting his muscles to twitching convulsively beneath his pale skin as it passed. Lex's eyes were wide open now and they were a dark stormy grey that Clark had quickly learned meant they wouldn't be leaving the bed for a long time. 

"Clark," Lex said breathily, his fingers tightening in Clark's hair. 

Lex opened his mouth as if to talk again but nothing was forthcoming save a low moan as Clark dipped the tip of his tongue into his belly button. Clark grinned and squeezed Lex's ass, eliciting another moan and a thrust of Lex's hips that made the damp tip of his hard cock bump against the underside of Clark's chin. 

"Patience, Lex," Clark said with a grin and was rewarded with a low growl from Lex that suggested that it was far too early for teasing. 

Lex retaliated by wrapping his legs around Clark's ass and pushing, none too subtly, on the top of Clark's head. Clark was more than willing to give Lex just what he wanted but as he lowered his head as Lex had directed, he heard Johnny calling out for him. 

"Shit," Clark untangled himself from Lex and slumped back onto the bed, "he's supposed to be at his mom's." 

"Maybe if we ignore him, he'll go away," Lex suggested, shifting closer to Clark and tugging on his hand until it rested on the curve of Lex's hip 

"That only works with dogs, Lex," Clark said, trying to ignore Lex's attempts to make him come back and finish what he'd started. "Besides, there could be something really wrong." 

"I'm sure he's fine, Clark," Lex said in a particularly long-suffering tone. "If there was something really wrong, Superman-level wrong, I'm sure you would have heard something before now." 

"You're probably right," Clark said, fingers moving in aimless circles over Lex's hip and the small of his back. 

But he couldn't quite shake his feeling of unease and a quick sweep with his x-ray vision revealed Johnny standing outside the bedroom, his hand hovering over the door and his lower lip caught up between his teeth, obviously fighting with the decision of whether or not he should knock. 

"I think he really wants to talk to me. I should go." 

Lex sighed deeply, but rolled away from Clark nevertheless. The sheets fell around him in a particularly artful, and no doubt deliberate, way that emphasised just how hard he was for Clark. 

Clark swallowed and drew on every last reserve of his resolve in order to give him the strength to get out of the bed. He stumbled around looking for his clothes as Lex idly stroked his cock, smirking at him the whole time. 

"That's hardly fair," Clark growled as he unearthed his boxers and one sock from underneath the dresser and absolutely none of the rest of whatever he was wearing the night before. 

"I'm just making sure that you hurry back." 

"You know I will," Clark said as he pulled on his boxers and cast his eye around for something of Lex's that could conceivably fit him well enough to still be decent. 

"I know," Lex said, his smirk softening into a more genuine smile. "You'd better go and see what Johnny wants." 

* * *

The seams of Lex's robe were strained almost to bursting point, and Clark was glad that he had at least found his boxers as it didn't quite close across his chest, but it was the best he could do in the circumstances. 

Johnny's eyes widened almost comically as Clark stepped out into the hallway and the corner of his mouth twitched a little. 

"Don't even think about it," Clark said warningly. 

Johnny grinned in response, but then his expression quickly became more serious. "Do you realise what day it is, Dad?" 

Clark scowled. Yes, it was a Sunday, his Lex day, but he doubted that was what Johnny meant by the question. "No. I only know that you should be at your mom's right now." 

Johnny rolled his eyes and grabbed hold of Clark's wrist, dragging him toward the living room. "She knows I'm here, and she knows why I'm here." 

Clark stumbled after Johnny, his thoughts racing. He didn't think he'd forgotten anything important that he and Johnny were supposed to do that day. Sure, he'd been a bit distracted by Lex over the past few weeks, but he'd never forget anything like that. 

Jules was sprawled out on one of the leather couches, still wearing his pyjamas, and he tiredly waved one hand at Johnny and Clark as they entered the living room. Clark raised his eyebrows unbelievingly at the sight. He'd come to believe that Jules didn't actually realise that Sundays began before twelve o'clock. 

"Morning, Mr. Kent," Jules said, rubbing at his eyes as he pushed himself upright a little way before sagging against the arm of the couch. He looked as though he too had just been pulled out of bed: his hair flattened at the back and a tangle of tight corkscrew curls at the front. 

"Morning, Jules." Clark sat down heavily on the couch by the boy's feet. "Would you boys like to tell me what's going on?" 

"I told you that he'd have forgotten, didn't I?" Johnny asked Jules, who nodded his head slowly, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. "Come on, you must remember what you told us about today. You said that once Jules got the all clear from his doctor, or three months had passed since his accident, whichever was longer, you'd start taking us out to train so we can join the Teen Titans. It's been three months, Dad." 

Clark groaned, rubbing at his suddenly-tired eyes. He vaguely remembered making that promise, but he hadn't really given much thought as to what he'd do when the time came. He'd actually secretly hoped that Johnny and Jules would give up the whole idea of joining the Titans. He didn't really want Johnny risking himself like that. 

At least he could count on Lex not allowing Jules to join the team. Lex had no time for superheroes at the best of times, never mind organised groups of them, and there was very little chance that he'd want Jules getting into the sort of situations that might lead to him getting hurt again. He could take the coward's route and let Lex be the one to put paid to any aspirations that Jules might have towards becoming a superhero. Clark doubted that Johnny would want to join the Titans without Jules. 

"I know what I said," Clark said, trying to ignore the look of disappointment that passed over Johnny's face, "but it's just not practical. I mean, we haven't even given any thought to costumes or anything. We can't just go flying the place without the two of you wearing disguises. I know we've flown together before, Johnny, but if we ran any trouble and someone took a picture -" 

"Then it's a good job that at least one of us plans these things in advance," Lex said as he sauntered into the living room carrying a suit bag. 

He handed the bag to Johnny and then took a seat next to Clark, wearing a very smug-looking smile on his face. Clark glared at Lex, who had somehow found time to get properly dressed in neat grey slacks and a violet shirt, and smelled deliciously shower-fresh. 

"You had costumes made?" Clark hissed, digging his fingers into Lex's thigh. 

The muscles in Lex's thigh jerked and his smile became slightly less smug. "If they're going to do this, then it's better that they do it properly." 

"I was sort of hoping that you thought this was as bad an idea as I do, and would help me dissuade them." 

"I can't say that I'm particularly happy with the thought of my son willingly putting himself into dangerous situations with a bunch of people who - no offence meant, you understand - are little more than adrenaline junkies who happen to have special powers." Lex prised Clark's hand from his leg and laced their fingers together loosely. "But I don't think I'm going to be able to convince Jules of that. It seems that some people see it as their duty to use any gifts that they're blessed with to help others. I don't understand it myself, but I'm sure you can sympathise." 

Clark rested his forehead against Lex's shoulder and sighed. "I suppose that all I can do is to try my best to make sure that they're as safe as possible until they're ready to do this on their own." 

"That's all we can ever do," Lex said, his free hand running gently over Clark's hair. "I suppose that it's not something most normal parents have to deal with, but then we don't exactly have normal kids, do we?" 

Clark managed to smile as Johnny unzipped the suit bag and then exclaimed in delight when he pulled out his costume. It was similar to Clark's own: the crest of the House of El was emblazoned boldly across the chest, but it was black across the shoulders and coupled with red leggings. 

"I designed it myself," Lex said, his fingers curling around the shell of Clark's ear. "I wanted it to echo the design of your suit, but still be distinctive enough that no one could confuse the two of you, even at a distance." 

"Don't I get a costume, Dad?" Jules asked a little petulantly, nudging Lex with his foot. 

"All in good time," Lex told his son as he tugged on lightly on the lobe of Clark's ear. "Why don't you try it on, Johnny? And while you do, your dad can go and get dressed himself." 

Clark grumbled to himself as he stood up, but he couldn't really think of any alternative. At least this way he could be sure that the boys wouldn't be likely to try anything stupid like going up against the Joker again before they were ready. 

Johnny smiled at Clark as they walked out of the living room together. "This is going to be so cool, Dad," he said happily. 

Clark grunted, still unconvinced, wondering if his own father had ever felt these same sorts of reservations about Clark's own heroic activities as a teenager. 

* * *

Clark felt a little better as soon as he put on his Superman costume. The suit always made him feel stronger somehow, more in control. 

His stride was much more confident as he walked toward the living room again, his boots clicking smartly against the polished hardwood floor. 

Johnny nearly ran straight into him in the hallway, and he clutched at Clark's arms to stop himself from falling down. 

"Are you okay, son?" Clark asked him in some concern. Johnny's face was bright red and he looked almost on the verge of tears. 

"There's no way I'm wearing this," Johnny said, tugging at his costume in obvious distress. 

Clark held Johnny at arm's length and looked him up and down. The costume seemed to be made of a similar material to Clark's own suit but, unfortunately for Johnny, it didn't fit quite so well. Johnny had just had yet another growth spurt, which had left him an even six foot, but had also burnt away the little excess flesh that the boy had had, leaving him with gangly legs that looked as though they shouldn't be strong enough to keep him upright and a chest that was almost concave. The costume hung off him as if it were made of sacking. 

"Erm..." Clark didn't want to upset Johnny, but the boy did look a bit ridiculous, as if he'd shrunk in the wash while his clothes had stayed the same size. "Maybe we should put this off until we can get you another costume." 

"No way, Dad." Johnny shook his head as he wriggled out of Clark's grip. "I'm just going to wear my normal clothes. I think any costume would look just as stupid as this one until I get an ass again." 

"You can't fight crime in jeans and a T-shirt," Clark called after Johnny as he trudged along the hallway, his head bowed. 

"I tried to reason with him," Lex said, appearing at Clark's side and touching his shoulder to Clark's, "but he was very insistent. Apparently, he thinks that he can just take up wearing glasses when he's not off saving the world, because it's always worked for you." 

Clark sagged against Lex tiredly. "What about Jules? How's his costume?" 

"Why don't you see for yourself," Lex said, cupping Clark's elbow and gently turning him around. 

Jules - or what Clark presumed was Jules - was standing in the doorway to the living room with his hands on his hips, striking what he apparently considered was a suitably heroic pose. He was wearing a dark green boiler suit and a full mask that covered the entire of his head and shoulders, his eyes hidden behind purple goggles. 

"I know a lot of superheroes wear masks," Clark said slowly, fighting the urge to laugh, "but don't you think that's overkill? Can he even breathe under there?" 

Lex frowned, glaring at Clark out of the corner of his eye. "Of course he can. The mask has breathing apparatus and a voice modulator incorporated into it. He's too well known for me to chance even the smallest part of his face being visible." 

"Don't you think the colours might give him away a little?" Clark shook his head in amusement. "You might as well have had a LexCorp logo printed on his back." 

"Maybe we could rethink the colour scheme at some point." Lex conceded grudgingly. "But the mask stays." 

"Okay, Lex," Clark said, looping his arm around Lex's waist and running his hand along Lex's side until his smile returned. Lex relaxed into Clark, tilting his head back for a kiss. 

"If you guys are going to start making out, I'm leaving," Jules said, his voice harsh and robotic sounding. "I may well throw up and, as I'm wearing this mask, I'll likely drown in my own vomit. You wouldn't want that on your consciences would you?" 

Jules walked exceedingly slowly past Clark and Lex. His arms and legs moved very stiffly, elbows and knees barely bending. Now Clark had the chance to take a closer look, it occurred to him that Jules' body was looking much bulkier than it usually did. 

A quick burst of x-ray over Lex's shoulder confirmed Clark's suspicions. "I think he could stand to be wearing less body armour, as well. The poor boy can barely move." 

"I just want him to be safe, Clark." 

"I know, Lex, and I'll make sure that he is. You don't have to worry about that." 

"I'm going to be worrying about all of you," Lex admitted, before pressing his lips against Clark's. 

Clark tried to ignore Jules' horrified, "I'm still right here!" as he returned Lex's kiss. 

Lex broke away from Clark before they could get anywhere near making out. Clark groaned, he knew it wasn't exactly the best time to be starting anything, but his body was still aching for a continuation of their interrupted activities from earlier that morning. 

"I have something to ask you, Clark." Lex's face was a carefully blank mask, but his eyes were a little wild. 

It was a look Clark had seen on numerous occasions lately, usually in the depths of the night when Lex would rouse Clark from sleep and confess some misdemeanour from his past that had obviously been keeping him awake. Lex would always have that exact expression on his face, as if already bracing himself for Clark to lose his temper, to start a fight or walk away from him once again, this time with no hope of reconciliation. 

"What is it, Lex?" Clark asked, grabbing hold of Lex's hands before the other man could move away. Lex didn't seem to be able to meet Clark's eyes and it made Clark more than a little nervous. He'd been able to curb his temper and forgive everything that Lex had told him thus far, reminding himself that it had been a long time and, in Lex's case, a figurative lifetime ago. He still thought that Lex had many other things to confess, maybe more difficult to forgive. He found himself consciously slowing his breathing and forcing his muscles to relax in anticipation. 

"I was thinking," Lex cleared his throat nervously, "that seeing as though you and the boys will probably be needing to spend more time together in the future, training and so on, that it might be easier for you if we were all in the same location. Jules and I are going to be moving back to the house soon, and I thought that perhaps you and Johnny could join us. I could have a wing converted into an apartment for your mother; the house is big enough that we'd never notice the loss of space." 

Lex glanced furtively at Clark, his hands gripping Clark's so hard that his knuckles creaked with the strain. Clark's body relaxed in truth. Lex was readying himself to shrug off the offer as nothing if Clark refused. It was simply damage limitation, a reflex reaction that Lex had learnt over the years: protecting himself from hurt by pretending not to care about the things that truly mattered. 

"Are you asking me to move in with you?" 

Lex nodded mutely, eyes dropping to his feet. 

"I'd love to, Lex. I'll have to clear it with mom and Johnny first, of course." 

Lex didn't raise his head but Clark could see that he was smiling, nevertheless. Clark knew that it was probably too early, that their relationship was far too young and fragile, but he didn't want to wait. 

He'd been stuck spinning his wheels for far too long. It was time that he, and Lex, moved on and started really living their lives again. If they put as much effort into trying to make everything work as they had in trying to destroy each other once upon a time, then there was no way that they could fail. 


End file.
